


A Game Of You

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Background Femslash, Background Het, Clones, Gen, Human Trafficking, Memory Alteration, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Red Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-17 15:09:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3534026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young woman is brutally murdered by the Vory in Saskatchewan. This is tragic enough, but she also wears Natasha Romanoff's face. <i>And she's not the only one.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Twinning

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." The story was plotted and I started writing it before the second season of "Agents of SHIELD" began. I am jossed _so hard_ by the MCU, but hey! Fic! :)
> 
> This is Jessy's and Audrey's fault during all of our characterization discussions, their watching Orphan Black and our headcanons for the Red Room. Also loosely inspired by [this gifset,](http://eustaciavye28.tumblr.com/post/101544434243/a-sniper-takes-a-shot-at-natasha-romanoff-half-a) though I don't follow that plot at all. There is going to be violence, implied violence, and all sorts of fucked up stuff that is mentioned as part of the Red Room shenanigans.

Samantha Thomas wondered what had made her choose the Saskatchewan winter as a good time to move and begin a brand new nursing program. But after being an aide in the nursing home in Vancouver for so long, she had wanted a change of pace. She also hoped that being out here could prevent the Black Widow jokes from starting up again. Friends had remarked on the resemblance after the Battle of New York, especially when she dressed up as the Black Widow for Halloween. All she had to do was dye her blonde hair red, and she was a dead ringer for the spy, which was eerie. The talk had started up again after the fall of SHIELD and her appearance before the US Congress that spring. Her neighbors didn't seem to know anything about US politics, thank God, and lived a good five kilometers away anyway.

She was about to turn down her driveway when she saw the light on in the kitchen and bedroom, shining like beacons in the darkness. She only kept a porch light on to guide her way home, and a single lamp in the living room set on a timer. Thieves, then. She lived alone, which seemed like a good idea after the breakup with Jeremy, but now seemed like a horror movie trope in action. Well, fuck that, she didn't plan on being a helpless victim.

Continuing down the road, she dialed the police to report the probable break in. That was the intent, anyway.

There was no signal. She went from five bars to none in the space of ten meters. It was strange, because there were no dead spots on this road.

The reason was soon apparent. A group of three men were on the road ahead, some kind of electronic device between them, blocking her path. A large SUV then drove up behind her, boxing her in.

Samantha had her textbooks, a can of mace and a self-defense course she took five years ago. Somehow, she didn't think it was going to be enough.

And it wasn't, though mace in the eyes of the man that smashed her windshield and then the guy that cut the seatbelt slowed them down. He also cut her coat, shirt and skin, but she didn't feel that until much later. The three men ahead ran forward, and Samantha knew her chances were slim and none for surviving if she stayed in her car. Slipping her phone in her pocket and taking out her keys as an impromptu weapon, she slammed the door into another assailant, knocking him back. Then she took off into the night, knowing exactly where she was going. At least she had that over these guys. It looked as though there were six of them, and two had gotten eyefuls of mace. She could hear them screaming and stumbling, and the other four were behind her, bellowing at each other in a language that sounded dimly familiar but was one that she couldn't understand a word of.

She was going to die, and it was probably going to be horrible. Shit, she was going to be a news story like the ones she and her friends clucked sympathetically over in the morning before starting their shifts. She didn't have family to report to, nothing put a pile of debts and a province license to her name. There wasn't even a pet waiting for her at home.

Pathetic. Really pathetic.

Well, she didn't have to make it easy for them. She ran through the woods, looking back occasionally to see where they were. They picked their way through the dark, shades of back on black hiding fallen logs or debris. Samantha tried to pretend for a moment that she was a heroine in a movie, and this was an action sequence. Heh, she could even be Black Widow, she kicked serious ass.

Black Widow. Holy crap, did these guys think she was the Black Widow? What a laugh. As if someone like that would be in the backwoods, running for her life. The real Black Widow would turn and fight. She would kill these guys with her thighs and bare hands.

Wait. One of those guys had fallen and got separated from the others. Maybe she could pull out a little inner Black Widow action, fueled by adrenaline and the will to live, even up the odds a little. Samantha slowed her crashing run and started turning to circle back. The solitary thug was a ways from the other three, cursing when he crashed into a tree. She grabbed a fallen branch as thick as her wrist. Gritting her teeth as she stealthily approached, she swung the branch as hard as she could. It connected with his head in a sickening crunch, and he dropped to the ground like a bag of rock salt. 

Not waiting to confirm that he was dead, Samantha dropped the branch and took off running again. This time she was parallel to the road, hoping that maybe she could steal their car and drive to her neighbors. She pulled out her phone and dialed police as she ran, seeing that she had signal again. "Please help," she breathlessly said as soon as someone picked up. Of course the dispatcher wanted her name and information, and she spat that out quickly. "These guys boxed in my car, had a cell phone jammer. God, I think they're going to kill me..."

The cell phone tumbled out of her hand as she tripped over a fallen branch. Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck, _not now._ Samantha was usually more coordinated than this, far more alert than this. The branch shouldn't have come as a surprise to her.

Shouts erupted behind her. The other three guys must have found their companion. Maybe he was dead after all. Good. One less guy to try to kill her.

Samantha didn't even try to pick up her cell phone again. "Oh shit!" she hissed, and took off running again. Hopefully the dispatcher would send someone quickly, and they wouldn't simply find her dead body.

She got to the cars in the road, but she had lost her own keys in the forest. There was no sign of any key in the SUV parked behind hers. It didn't hit her right away, but the two men she had maced were nowhere to be seen. _Shit,_ she thought, _there have to be_ more _of them around somewhere, then..._

She took off running on the opposite side of the street, hoping that her pursuers wouldn't think to look for her there. A neighbor might be able to let her hide or call police again. Yes, that was it. The Rokytas were a nice couple, always so polite when Samantha had seen them in the few months she had been here. They would let her help.

Seeing the porch light on made her smile and break out into a run. "Lyudmila!" she called out, knocking on the door. "It's Samantha!"

The older woman came to the window to confirm it was her, then opened the door. "Oh, you look a fright," she said, her accented voice soothing. She made a clucking sound as she ushered Samantha into her kitchen. "All that running you did."

Freezing in place, Samantha looked at Lyudmila Rokyta. "What?"

Lyudmila's grip was viselike, and she was far stronger than she looked. "No need to play dumb, Natalia. It is an insult to us both." She frog marched Samantha into her kitchen, where the two men she had maced were waiting. "These men have not been punished enough for their incompetence, but I let the Vory take care of it. I say it is lucky my home is closest to the pick up point, but we have gotten rid of the Andersens just in case you ran there instead."

"Gotten rid of?" Samantha repeated faintly, not quite comprehending what she was hearing.

"Well, you must come here, yes? And I do not like their yappy dogs anyway. Such pests, no good for anyone if they live."

Samantha felt nauseous, and she looked at Lyudmila in dread. "What's going on here?"

The old woman gave her a sardonic glance. "Let us not insult the other, yes?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. Those men attacked my car."

"Of course they did. You owe the Vory quite a bit, Natalia."

"I'm not Natalia. My name is Samantha."

The glance turned pitying. "It was said the Widows don't even know what they are, with their programming. I hadn't known it to be true." She threw Samantha at the two men, who easily caught her. Though Samantha struggled, they held her tight. "This persona seems to be a sweet girl. Too bad. You should have stayed a killer, Natalia. That would have saved you."

There was no asking what Lyudmila meant by that. A knife already slid between her ribs, and the two men holding her up was the only thing keeping her on her feet. Lyudmila nodded back out toward the front of the house. "Finish the job outside. No blood on my floors."

Samantha lost consciousness from the pain long before they were done carving up her body.

***

"Barton? You're going to want to see this."

Clint Barton, formerly of SHIELD, was now working with an independent security firm that handled detail work as well as supervision over military and government agencies. The CIA and NSA scandals that rocked Washington in the wake of SHIELD's demise had spurred outrage and ferocious social media coverage. Stark Industries, Hyperion Tech, and Dynamic Solutions had risen out of the miasma as the forerunners in independent information and security brokers. Clint had been offered a job at SI, but he had turned it down in favor of Dynamic Solutions. "I know the guy," he had told Tony. "Someone I owe a couple of favors to."

Tony hadn't taken it personally at the time. "Hey, whatever works. But you know, if that doesn't work out, you can have a job. Definitely maybe. Pepper does all the hiring. But you'd have an awesome rec letter from me. And did you know that Pep hired Maria Hill? She's so efficient, it's scary, and her with Pep? Don't want to mess with that team. The only team scarier than that one was when Natasha was working for me."

He had laughed at the expression on Tony's face. "I'll keep it in mind," he had promised, though he hadn't really meant it at the time. His contact in the underground that he had been working on when SHIELD collapsed had hidden him from Hydra goons and the smattering of AIM cronies that wanted to move into the power vacuum. Clint really owed Fyed, and he liked the guy a lot, besides. The work was easy and the paycheck was a lot better than government issue, that was for certain. Fyed believed in keeping his agents paid well to keep them from moving elsewhere, and Clint definitely appreciated the tactic.

Isabella Cruz had been hired out of Barcelona, and set up shop in New York at Fyed's request. It gave him a US office and let Isabella have the jet set lifestyle she wanted to have. So Clint did circle around New York a lot more than he thought he would, and that sometimes put him in the same orbit as Tony, Maria and Pepper. It was kind of comforting, especially after Natasha went to ground with a promise to keep in touch. "I have to figure out what I'm doing next. If I'm not telling anyone's lies, I have to decide if I want to tell my own," she had said quietly. Clint had thought it was impressive that she had tracked him down to Fyed's hideout in Morocco, but it was _Natasha._ As well as he knew her, he was constantly surprised by her brilliance.

"Fyed would hire you in a heartbeat," he had offered.

She had merely smiled. "So would a dozen other international agencies. There are also at least a dozen organizations that want to hunt me down and kill me. So a break sounds really good right around now."

Clint let his feet fall from his desk and headed over to Isabella's. As much as this was Dynamic Solutions' US flagship, it really was a relatively small office with limited staff. "What's up, Izzy? You know, I almost beat my high score in FreeCell."

"Try again some other time," Isabella told him, turning her screen around so he could see it.

At first, Clint didn't see what was so important about a death in the Saskatchewan countryside, as gruesome as it seemed to be. Then he saw the picture of Samantha Thomas, the victim, and she was the spitting image of Natasha. His heart leapt into his throat. He had just seen her, just talked with her, just offered her a job...

Isabella shot him a sympathetic look. "There's chatter in various intelligence circles that evidence looks like a Vory hit." At Clint's agonized expression, she turned the computer around. "I'm asking a friend to do a DNA check to be sure. The article said that she's only lived there about a month, recently moved from Vancouver."

"I need to be there, identify the body..." Clint's voice broke.

Concerned, Isabella got up and helped Clint into a chair. "I'll book your flight. You were close."

"She's my best friend," Clint told Isabella helplessly. "She's good. She's _too_ good. It could be a fake, a way to trick everyone."

That was grasping at straws, he knew it was, but he couldn't help it. Natasha couldn't be dead, not after all the shit she and Steve and Sam had gone through in spring. He had been so far undercover he hadn't been able to help until it was too late.

"Fyed will let you take off, you know. Just go," Isabella offered. "You take as much time as you need, all right?"

Because this was messy, meant to be a sign to all enemies of the Vory. Natasha wouldn't have died clean or easy. She would have been in terrible pain, anxious and alone.

That thought kept circling in Clint's mind during the flight in to Canada. Natasha could have been anywhere, been anyone. She had all sorts of skills that would allow her to blend seamlessly into whatever surroundings she found herself in. So how did the Vory find her?

Izzy had a friend that had access to NSA records; he wasn't about to ask for details and she hadn't offered any. Samantha Thomas had moved to the area the month before from Vancouver, where she had worked as a nurse's aide for nearly five years. Before that, she had been a barista while working her way through college. It had taken her five years to complete her degree because she changed her major from English literature to French to biology, as well as completed the program for her CNA training. There were no confirmed records of her existence prior to college, but she couldn't possibly be Natasha. The confirmed sightings of Samantha in class or at work in the coffee shop in Vancouver coincided with Strike Team Delta jobs. Natasha was good, but even she couldn't be in two places at once.

But the initial test results were back by the time his plane touched down. Samantha's DNA was an exact match for Natasha's. The NSA was willing to say that the famous Black Widow was dead, killed by the Vory.

What the hell was going on?

The body in the morgue certainly looked like Natasha, but was missing the scar on her lower abdomen from the Winter Soldier's shot. Isabella's contact managed to wrangle some interview opportunities for Clint, and the local police officers didn't seem upset in the slightest. "This is a quiet community," one of them explained when he asked about it. "Any pointers to help catch the killer won't be turned away."

Clint and local police forces went out to the crime scene, long since wiped clean by forensics teams and a rainstorm. He asked to go there more to get a sense of how it would have happened the night Samantha was killed. According to the formal reports, her car was found in the middle of the road not too far from her home, which had its doors unlocked and lights were on. Nothing had been taken, even from boxes that hadn't been unpacked yet. Neighbors had been canvassed, but only one was interviewed. Others couldn't be reached.

With a sinking feeling, Clint tried to imagine Samantha's travels that night. If she was coming home from an evening shift, and found lights on in her house with the door open, she wouldn't have stopped off at home. The dispatcher she had spoken to had gotten police to the area as quickly as possible, but obviously not quickly enough. _These guys boxed in my car, had a cell phone jammer. God, I think they're going to kill me..._ Her cell phone had been found in the woods, as have her car keys. She knew the area, obviously wanted to hide from her attackers and get to safety. She would have tried to get to a neighbor's home.

"Who are the closest people to her house?" Clint asked one of the officers.

"There's the Andersens on this side of the road and the Rokytas on the other."

"Couldn't reach the Andersens, but you have an interview with Mrs. Rokyta," Clint confirmed, frowning slightly. He paused as the officer nodded. "Any missing persons reports for the Andersens, by any chance?"

The officer actually frowned at him. "You don't think—"

"If the Vory is taking credit, I wouldn't be surprised if the neighbors were dead so that Samantha Thomas couldn't get help."

"But we got an interview with..." The officer's voice trailed off as it sank in. "So you think Mrs. Rokyta is part of this."

"Let's put it this way," Clint began, taking pity on him. He was a small town police officer, not used to searching the shadows for criminal organizations. "I wouldn't be surprised if there's a tie there somewhere. She moved to the area just about a month ago, and an international criminal organization takes her out _here?_ A bigger city like Vancouver where she was from might be a far stretch, given what she did for a living, but that would surprise me less. I think it must be bad luck on Samantha's part, moving in next door to a Vory member, but it doesn't add up. Why here? Why now?"

Letting out a slow breath, the officer nodded. "Shall I put in a call to CSIS?"

"Yeah, I think you'd better," Clint said quietly. "I wasn't up on that aspect of the intelligence community. It was more Na—a friend's job," he corrected, not quite ready to admit aloud that Natasha might be dead. "But my gut is telling me that this girl got set up out here. It doesn't look like she should've been found as cut up on the road as she was."

The bad feeling grew worse when they visited the Andersen's home first. One officer called in to CSIS as the other officer drove. The front door was locked, no lights were on inside the house. The entire place felt eerie and still. Clint had them circle around to the back of the house, and the back door had one broken glass pane in it. He looked over at his companions. "So... Would that count as probable cause for you guys?"

It did, and the trio carefully maneuvered into the home. There was a stench that set off alarm bells for Clint, and he gave the two Canadian officers a significant look. "I think you guys should make another call, this time for a forensics team."

One of the two officers continued forward, then raced back out. "Four people and two dogs, all shot in the head."

"Do we need to be here when your fellow officers arrive?" Clint asked, taking in the officer's greenish complexion. He shook his head. "C'mon. You can call it in on the way to Ryotka's house. This just stinks of organized crime."

Lyudmila Ryotka was all smiles and helpfulness, apologizing for her husband being out on a trip to visit family at the moment. Clint looked around the house, taking in the impersonal air that the sitting room had. "Where are pictures?" he asked suddenly, interrupting the officer's line of questioning regarding the night of Samantha's death.

"Excuse me?" she asked, staring at Clint. "Who are you again?"

"Security consultant," he replied, returning her assessing gaze. That was the stare of a little old lady, but of someone who knew exactly what lived in the dark. "Where's Mr. Ryotka? Can we give him a call and make sure he's okay?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Your neighbors are all dead," Clint replied, ignoring the ashen expression of the police officers he had arrived with. He was watching her face closely, and she didn't look surprised at all. "But then, I suppose you know that."

"It was all over the news about the girl's death," Lyudmila replied calmly.

"Not too far from your home."

"She _was_ a neighbor."

"And I suppose the Vory was interested in the activities of all your neighbors?" Clint asked in a musing manner.

Lyudmila's eyes were sharp enough that even the police officers with Clint realized there was more to her than the unassuming persona she had let them see. "Who are you?"

Clint smiled, but it barely stretched his lips. It was his "business smile," one that Natasha had given him a thumbs up for, stating that it gave him a serious look. "No one will fuck with you if you smile like that," she had said. And it was true, and made him miss her that much more.

"You fool them, but you don't fool me," she cried, jumping to her feet and wagging her finger at him. "You get nothing from me, nothing."

"If we go downtown, the Vory will think you rolled on them."

She paled and nearly fell back into her chair. "No. I would do no such thing."

"But if they _think_ you did..." The business smile was back, and Lyudmila looked away first. "Well, I'm sure you know what will happen if they're unhappy with you."

"I am retired, I am out of the business. I would do no such thing. All commanders know this."

Now the business smile looked almost feral. Natasha could do so much more with openings like this, but Clint was no slouch either. "Do they really? Just a word in the community..."

Lyudmila's eyes flashed with panic. "No. I am good, loyal and _retired._ I have no business with the commanders."

"Then how did they know about Samantha?" Clint asked. "She's out in the middle of nowhere."

She turned away from Clint, lips pressed together unhappily. "If a Widow arrives, I do not think it is coincidence. I do not believe she is innocent. Or wiped clean." She turned back to Clint and glared. "I think she is planning something, and I think the price on her head is worth every penny to make sure her plans _stop."_

The officers crowded in to arrest her for the death of Samantha Thomas, but Clint felt hollow in its wake. It didn't matter if they could put Lyudmila away or find her Vory ties. Samantha was still dead, and she still wore Natasha's face. Too many people out there wanted to hunt down and kill the Black Widow, and Natasha was all alone.

***

Clint paused when he entered his hotel room. He hadn't been in it that long before he had gone to meet with the local police officers, but his luggage was in a different spot in the room, the corner of the bed was turned down as if slept in, and the bathroom door was ajar. Clint knew for certain he had left the door closed. He didn't have his bow, or even any guns, but he could still use hand to hand and improvise weapons if he had to. 

Easing into the room silently, he stopped cold when he saw who was sitting in the corner chair.

Natasha Romanoff, hair dyed a nondescript brown and dressed in jeans and a plain pink T shirt. Her leather jacket was slung across the corner of the desk. She looked tired, dark circles beneath her eyes, but there was warmth in her eyes when she looked at him.

 _Alive._ Natasha was alive.

"I'm looking really good for a dead woman, huh?" she said, lips twisting into a wry smile.

"God, Tash..."

The smile faltered a little. "I may have been piggybacking on your company's intel. Sorry."

"You're not sorry."

"No, not really."

Clint approached and she stood up. There was some uncertainty in her stance, but Clint had none at all. He pulled her into a tight hug, not caring if she wasn't normally demonstrative. But she clung to him right back, tucking her face against his chest. "I thought you were dead," he whispered hoarsely. "I'm so glad you're not."

"Was she—?"

"She looks just like you. DNA matches exactly. The Vory thinks they found you under a new cover and took you out as a lesson to their enemies." Clint squeezed her even tighter, and was pleasantly surprised that she didn't protest.

"I had a twin?" she murmured. He could feel her start to shake a little, and he pulled back to take a look at her. Surprise colored her features, and Clint suddenly realized that she was stripped back farther than he had ever seen her before. She had mentioned that the fall of SHIELD had shaken her, had forced her to reevaluate what she thought and believed. _They don't trust me,_ she had murmured at the time. It had hurt her more than she thought possible, that the ones she trusted implicitly, had thought of as her friends and not just allies, hadn't thought her trustworthy at all because of her history.

"Looks that way. What do you remember?"

She shook her head and turned away. "Fire. They said I was dropped out of a window, that my mother had to do it to save me. That she died in the fire..." Natasha turned back, and Clint could see the vulnerability in her expression. "I don't know why I trusted that, given every other way they lied and manipulated my mind. I don't even know what's real anymore. I thought _that_ was real, that I once had a mother, but..."

"Hey. Hey," Clint pulled her back into his embrace. "Of course you had a mother. Of course she loved you. What mother wouldn't?"

"But if I had a twin..."

"Maybe they thought she died. That she didn't survive it, but she managed to get herself and your sister out, and they couldn't find you again."

Natasha's laughter was bitter. "It wouldn't surprise me."

"You had to get your toughness from somewhere, right?" Clint said, stroking her back in a soothing manner. "They can't have built that into you."

She pulled back enough to look him in the eye. "A sister I never knew, and she died for my sins."

"Jesus, Tash," Clint began, suddenly realizing with horror what Natasha had to be feeling. "No, no, it couldn't be like that—"

"She was a nurse. She helped people, comforted them, worked to help save them. And what did I do my entire life? I killed people. I tortured them for information in order to please masters or get paid. I lied and killed and stole, and she paid for _my_ ledger..."

Clint watched as she turned away, tears in her eyes. Even with him, she wouldn't want to break down and sob. But he pulled her back into his embrace and held her tightly as she struggled to be set free. If she really wanted to, she could get loose, but after a moment, she leaned into his chest and sobbed. He rocked her a little, stroking her back until she quieted.

"I'm sorry," he said, knowing it was so little, such a lame thing to say. The pain he was feeling now was horrible, and had to be only a fraction of her sorrow. "I'm so, so sorry. I should have known even the Red Room's records were full of lies. Even Samantha's didn't seem entirely real if you look at it closely."

"What do you mean?"

"She didn't exist before ten years ago. Or at least, not with that name. I mean, records are good, damn near flawless. But I know what to look for, and there are some inconsistencies."

Natasha pulled back, stunned. "What?"

He let go of her and went to dig through the papers and files he had collected about Samantha, also letting her wipe away her tears. Without a word, he handed them over to her for her inspection, knowing she would see it for herself.

She went very still when she saw it. "Oh," she said in a hushed voice. "Ten years..."

Clint met her gaze without flinching. "You never told me a lot of details about that period. Or what happened before that. And I've never asked, because it didn't seem necessary before. But that time period is conspicuously absent from the files you dumped onto the internet."

"Not everything belonged to SHIELD," she replied softly.

"I know. And I'm not going to ask now," he told her gently. "If I don't need to know, I don't need to know. But does this have something to do with what happened then?"

"It has to," she said quietly. "I was eighteen and a half when I burned down the Red Room. They were doing something to me at the time, I never knew what they did. No one survived."

"Are you sure?"

Natasha paused, thinking. "I don't know if I can be."

"I can help—"

"Let me do this first," she said, interrupting him with a hand on his chest. "I'm a dead woman, remember? I'll be able to haunt the Vory to avenge my sister, and I can try to find out what happened ten years ago." Her smile was sad. "You have a life, Clint. I can't ask you to walk away from it."

"You don't have to."

"I probably won't be doing very nice things," she said, letting her hand fall from his chest. "You have a chance to start over, stay clean."

Clint caught her falling hand. "Tasha, you don't have to go it alone. I mean it. Fyed would hire you as a consultant in a heartbeat under whatever name you want. Join Tony and that merry band of idiots and stay an Avenger. You have _options,_ you have _friends._ You're not as alone as you think you are. Maybe the others didn't know what to make of you, but I do. You are _not_ what Congress tried to paint you."

She gave him a soft, sad smile, and leaned in to kiss his cheek. "Thank you."

"Don't stay silent, okay? Off the radar is one thing, but you let me know what you're up to," he said as he let go of her hand.

Her smile widened a bit. "I'll do that. For now, I have people to visit in the Vory."

He answered her smile. "Give 'em hell. And if you want some help on that, gimme a call. I've been looking for some target practice."

That was enough to make her laugh, just as he hoped. She slipped on her jacket, gave him another kiss on the cheek, then slipped out of the door.

Clint sat down on the edge of his bed and stared at the shut door for a long moment. He would return to New York in the morning. As far as the world was concerned, Natasha Romanoff was dead. That would only help her move through the shadows.

Samantha deserved that much.

***  
***


	2. Collecting

Samantha Thomas' death set off waves in the intelligence community, all agencies certain that this was the cover identity for Natasha Romanoff after she went dark. She was dead, the Vory credited with killing her. They certainly gloated about it enough.

Nancy Forrest was an IT technician working in St. Louis for the county. She had auburn hair and green eyes, a pleasant smile on her face for the other county workers, and never made fun of the clerks for the stupid errors that they made. Prior to moving to St. Louis, Nancy had lived in Orlando and Houston. The heat eventually got to her, so she decided to move away from the deep South. The Midwest seemed like a nice enough compromise, though it could still get pretty hot in the summer. But there was snow in the winter, enough to give life to the vague and hazy memories she had of a childhood that never existed. In the six years she had lived in St. Louis, she had never come to regret the move.

She had little interest in the dating scene in this city. Or any city, really. Dating in general bored her, and playing the stupid games that went with dating didn't appeal at all. She had friendships with coworkers and neighbors, which kept her busy enough when not working. She tended to dress in business casual, even on her downtime, as opposed to a few other techs wearing jeans and polo shirts. Living alone, she sometimes took the extra calls or stayed late to check on the cable lines if connections cut out. And if additional cables were laid, or lines spliced or accounts hacked, none of the county officers knew for certain. Even the other techs admitted she knew about hardware and code than they did.

She arrived early for work after seeing the news feed regarding Samantha Thomas. She had never thought that she would actually see updates on names she tracked other than Natalia Alianovna Romanova's, and even for her she expected to see more under the Anglicized "Natasha Romanoff" than the Russian version. A chill ran through her when she saw the news feed, and sent off a quick message to Marcia and Nina.

_Start collecting. Compromise may be imminent._

***

Marcia Packesein had lived in Berlin for ten years, and had managed to build a small but reputable business as a martial arts instructor. She had classes of young children, adolescents, adults six days a week, and had specialty classes for self defense every once in a while that were populated with women or older adults wanting to avoid being assaulted late at night. She was slender but strong, capable of felling a man over two meters tall even with her much smaller stature. Her black hair was usually tied back in a ponytail to keep it out of her green eyes, and she was as comfortable in jeans and T shirts as she was in her _gi._ Occasionally she dated her neighbor, and he was always fun in bed. Neither really were looking for a committed relationship, just fun on the side or someone to bring along when a plus one was needed. His family members sometimes called her his girlfriend, and neither really corrected the mistaken assumption. It just made life easier for both of them.

She had a nice routine. Coffee and workout in the morning to loosen up, then she went to her dojo to start her day. Lunch was usually light, as was dinner. At various points throughout the day, she checked her mail and various news feeds. If there was one hobby she had, it was following international politics. Friends thought it was a strange interest, but she told them it was no different than following the antics of movie stars, which they did avidly. Marcia saw the political arena as a soap opera, and her friends could concede the point when she explained it that way. Politicians were constantly getting into scandals or making stupid remarks in public, which she found hilarious.

Still, getting the terse encrypted e-mail put her hobby to shame. Her blood ran cold as soon as she saw it, but she was able to pull herself together and finish her day's schedule.

As soon as she was home, Marcia dialed an international number. "Nina," she began without preamble. "Did you check your mail?"

There was a sigh on the other side of the line. "Yeah. We knew it was a matter of time, I guess..."

"What steps have you taken so far?"

"I put a call out to Thérèse and spoke with Nadine so far. Nancy will handle the US. Can you call the Eastern bloc?"

Marcia snorted. "Very funny."

It was obvious that Nina was about ready to laugh at her. "Well, they _are_ east of me."

"Where should we meet?"

"They don't _know,_ Marcia. Well, Olga and Natalia would possibly think the traffickers are involved again somehow. You can bring them in that way."

"If I don't kill Olga's lowlife boyfriend."

"Prison is not your friend."

"Nina..."

"I need to call Connie. Are you going to call Neveah?"

"I'll already have my hands full with Natalia's two!"

"Hey, the kids will all entertain each other!"

"Get Yelena on the phone, Nina, enough of this nonsense," Marcia snapped. She had no patience for children outside of her dojo. She could be infinitely patient while teaching, but otherwise, her nerves grated too hard with high pitched whines and screaming.

"Lena is actually out. You're stuck with me."

"Out?" Marcia prompted.

"Looking into a safe house large enough for all of us. She might have to get a few."

"I thought she had three!"

"Compromised by squatters of various flavors. Probably ordinary creepy homeless, but she's not taking any chances."

Marcia let out a slow breath, realizing she was far tenser than was healthy for her. "All right. All right. This is that serious, then."

"Did you really think Nancy is the type to go overboard on this?"

"No, I suppose not," Marcia said with a sigh. "I like my life here, though. I don't want to give it up. I want to stay."

"Just call it a family emergency. It's open ended, and it's not lying."

"No, it's not. It's just..." She turned away, even though Nina couldn't see her, and ran a hand through her hair in an agitated manner.

"I know," Nina said softly in reply. "I do. Lena is checking into things, and we're not really in the active collection phase yet. I hope to god we don't get that far, but you need to be aware of it in case it does get there."

"Fucking hell." Was that a tear on her face? Marcia blinked rapidly to clear her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Marcia, really I am. It's not like I won't be losing my life here, too."

"I know," Marcia replied. "I'm not mad at you, please don't think that. I'm furious with these fuckers that keep trying to kill us."

"It's been ten years," Nina pointed out. "We had a good run."

"Yeah. I plan to make sure it goes for a longer one. I'll start making calls, then."

"Thanks. Stay in touch."

Of course she would. It was the only way they would all stay alive.

***

Alia Greystone cheerfully counted out the change at the register as the phone rang. Her husband Ethan picked up the phone, his rich baritone comforting to her ear. "Greystone Bakery. Ethan speaking. How can I help you?"

He was a tall, broadly built man with curly black hair, dark skin and a ready smile. His brother Trenton was just as tall, though not as broadly built, and was less personable in general. He preferred the kitchen anyway, so Ethan ran the front of the bakery. When their business in New Orleans picked up, Alia had been hired. She slowly got into the baking side of things as well; her prior training had been more culinary and restaurant work. It was a good fit, and Alia sometimes joked about the differences in their appearances. She was a full foot shorter than Ethan at five foot five, with skin almost alabaster pale, light green eyes and red hair. She was generally very slender, keeping her figure with all of the baked goods she ate by boxing, kickboxing and doing dance routines regularly.

Over time, she and Ethan had grown close, finally deciding to date. They clicked immediately and married soon after. For a while, regular patrons had pestered them about whether or not they were having children, though that died down when Alia began to show. She was seven months along now, and felt huge even if some patrons assured her that she was cute and not abnormally large for a first child.

"Hon, it's for you," Ethan called.

Clearing the transaction, Alia hopped down from her stool behind the counter and swapped places with Ethan behind the counter. "Alia speaking," she said cheerily as she picked up.

"It's Nancy. We've got a situation. As in, we might need collecting."

The bottom dropped out of her gut, and she turned away from the front of the shop to hide her stunned reaction. "What? Are you sure?"

"One of us is dead. Vory."

"English? I left that stuff behind."

"Um, sorry, Russian mafia."

Alia held the phone in a white knuckled grip. "Is it the same—"

"I don't know. I don't know a lot about anything right now, but the warning still needs to go out, you know? You need to be prepared."

"Nancy, I'm seven months along," she hissed.

"Maybe we can coordinate something close to you..."

"No, you don't understand. I need my doctor, my family... I'm not giving this up. _Ever._ I am _not_ going to be cowering in fear because of a what if, and I keep myself safe."

"It might not be enough," Nancy warned her.

"I'll make it be enough. I'm not leaving."

"Alia..."

 _"No._ Update me, keep me in the loop, but you're not taking me anywhere."

Ethan touched her shoulder and elbow in support and silent question; Alia whirled around, startled, and saw that the shop was momentarily empty. She let out a sighing breath and cut off Nancy. "I've got to go."

"Please be careful," Nancy said in a pleading voice, and that Alia could listen to. Nancy meant well, she knew she did, but she wasn't leaving her home. She wasn't going to bow down to fear ever again.

"I will," Alia promised. She hung up and gripped the phone tightly in her hand for a long moment, staring at it before looking up at Ethan. "I suppose I have some stuff to tell you," she said softly. "I don't think now is a good time, if someone walks in..."

"Trent can man the register for a while," Ethan said gently.

She blew out a soft breath, and managed not to swear aloud when she saw that her hands were shaking. Alia _never_ got flustered in the shop, even with nasty customers packed into the front area like sardines. "It's probably better if he hears it, too. We're close to closing time," she began softly, not able to stop staring at her hands.

Ethan shook his head. "It's got you riled, we're closing now so we can talk."

It was short work to flip the front door sign to closed and lock up. Alia could do the count for the register in her sleep, and she felt as if she was floating in a dream. Trenton's suspicious glare didn't really register, not even when the three of them all sat in their living room. They lived above the shop in a two story apartment. Trenton's space was on the second floor, and Alia and Ethan took the top floor, since it had three bedrooms. She had already decorated one as a gender neutral nursery; they wanted to be surprised, and asked the ultrasound tech and doctors not to reveal the sex of the baby she was carrying.

"A long time ago, before I met you, I was in Europe," Alia began, feeling like she was setting the stage for a fairy tale. "I don't remember much of that, exactly. My memory was erased when I was kidnapped and set to be sold on the black market."

Trenton's tense stance unfolded in shock, and Ethan reached forward to grasp her hands in a reassuring manner. Whatever awful thing Trenton had thought she would talk about, this wasn't it. He never had cause to think the worst of Alia, but he hadn't liked the fact that she had no real history or family other than her cousin Nancy.

"I... I remember being grabbed, being shoved in the dark. Then prepped to be put on display for dirty old men to look at, to see if they wanted to buy me. None of them actually touched me, but I heard screaming in the next cell, crying in others..." Alia's voice shook a little, but she then looked up at Ethan, jaw firm. "I was saved, and I think they were Interpol. A young woman and an older man she met up with afterward." She licked her lips and continued. "I don't remember their names, I think the man was Ivan something. It didn't matter at the time, I just wanted to get the hell out of there. One girl was bad off, I think they said one died, I just wanted _out_ as fast as possible, as far as possible. They took some of those bastards' money and gave it to me to start over. She said I didn't have a family, that those guys kidnapped girls no one would miss, that she would help me to go wherever I wanted. So I chose the US, and I don't know why I picked Baton Rouge, but then there was school, and the apprenticeship, the restaurant moving to New Orleans and then folding..."

"Alia," Ethan murmured, rubbing her arm gently.

She flashed him a desperate, watery smile. "I have to believe I was meant to meet you. That we were supposed to be a family. Why else go through all that, right? But now Nancy called, said that one of us is dead. So if someone is tracking down these girls and killing us..."

"No," Ethan said, shaking his head. "Nobody's comin' to take you from us, Alia. You're my wife, we're together in this." He gave her a rueful smile. "Explains why the kickboxing."

Her laugh was more like a hiccup, and she brought his hands to her lips as some tears slipped down her cheek. "I'm not leaving, I'm not hiding. I'm not some helpless girl with no memory, I'm not alone now. I'm somebody, dammit. And I'm not going to run off into hiding, being scared so my baby is born afraid."

"You're family," Trenton said, his voice ponderous. "We get security on the place, we make sure nobody weird or strange follows you. I'll call my boys, we'll get your back."

Alia shot him a grateful smile. "Thanks, Trent." She knew they didn't always get along, that he was too prickly and standoffish. But they were family, and that mattered. That was possibly the only thing that did.

***

Nina got off the phone with Connie, who lived in London and was an office worker. She wasn't interested in leaving the metropolitan city for someplace defensible in the countryside, there was a ton of paperwork she had to do, bills to pay, and both a girlfriend and boyfriend she had no intention of leaving behind.

Nina resisted the urge to hurl her phone across the room, and ran a hand through her brown hair instead. Occasionally she put in highlights, but her shade was a rich mahogany that cascaded in thick waves down her back. Some fluke of genetics had apparently given each batch of girls a different hair color, but they all carried the same green eyes, slight build, slightly shorter than average stature and angelic features. She trained with weapons as well as hand to hand with her girlfriend regularly, and she deceptively looked fragile.

"That does not look like a happy face."

Speak of the devil...

Whirling around, Nina pulled her girlfriend in close. "Lena," she said happily before seizing her mouth in a kiss. "It's going to be a shit storm."

Yelena Belova sighed. She was blonde, blue eyed, slightly taller than Nina and far deadlier. She had been a star pupil in the Red Room, second only to Natasha Romanoff, and managed to escape when the entire organization was burned to the ground. Most of their resources and personnel were obliterated in one fell swoop, though other outposts had remained. Tapping into them had been easy, especially when Ivan Petrovich supplied all the necessary access codes and passwords. He had removed the triggers, protocols and implanted suggestions as best as he could, but he wasn't a personality programmer. She retained her memories and whatever of the personalities the Red Room had supplied up until its demise; some of those had come in handy over the intervening years.

"They're not coming, are they?"

"I only got a chance to talk to Connie so far. And check in with Marcia."

Patting Nina's shoulder, Yelena nodded. "They won't want to move. They're independent and very clever, just like the original. For now, chatter says that the Vory is laying claim to killing Natasha Romanoff. They don't know what they've done."

"But if anyone else sees the others..."

"If _that_ was the way you all get found out, it would've happened already."

"But Samantha..."

Sitting on the couch abruptly, Yelena shook her head. "We can't assume anything. Natasha dumped incredible amounts of information into the internet. SHIELD has imploded and Hydra is snapping up the remnants of the agency however they can." She ran a hand through her blonde hair. "It's as bad as the old Red Room days."

"You said Ivan got rid of their tech..."

"Whatever he knew about and could part with. I took care of the rest."

"I don't like this," Nina whispered.

Yelena stood again and went to Nina's side, cupping her face in her hands. "No one will ever hurt you, Nina. Never. I swear on my life."

It was the only thing the girls in the Red Room had to bargain with, Nina knew. It wasn't really theirs, not when the Red Room could make them over into whatever they wanted, but that was the only thing they had any control over. It was the greatest pledge any Red Room girl could make, and was a sign of how seriously Yelena was taking this.

Nina covered Yelena's hands with her own. "No word yet about anyone seeing weird things. Like Samantha being killed was a fluke."

"I'm not willing to believe that. Are you?"

"Nope." Nina pulled Yelena closer and kissed her tenderly. "They're not going to want to leave their lives, Lena."

"They may have to if they want to live."

"Lena, spending the rest of our lives in hiding may not be an option. Would you really want us all to disappear?"

A pained expression flashed across Yelena's features. "If it meant you lived, yes."

"But what good would it be if I was away from you? If we never saw each other again?" Nina hooked her hands into the waist of Yelena's fitted jeans. "What if we took the fight to them? Instead of cowering and hiding, we collected the fighters among us and took _them_ out? I think we can pull it off."

"Sparring in our gym isn't the same as going after the Vory or Department X."

"They're not the only ones we'd have to get rid of," Nina pointed out. The corners of her lips quirked. "If SHIELD is gone, who's going to stop some power hungry megalomaniac from creating another Red Room? From kidnapping and torturing little girls for kicks? From selling off whoever they can't use any other way?"

"I've been culling the herd," Yelena replied stiffly, bristling.

"Let me help you. Let the others help you."

Yelena wrenched herself away. "I won't risk you that way."

"It's not your call to make," Nina told her evenly.

_"Yes, it is!"_

Nina gave Yelena a level look. "Because you're the arbiter of we can and can't do."

"Nina..."

"No, no, I get it. I'm not some big, bad assassin. I'm only an English teacher here in Madrid. I'm not cool like you. Any training they might've imprinted isn't there, and I had to learn everything from scratch." There was bitterness evident in Nina's voice, and her entire body thrummed with tension. "But this is _my_ life, Lena. I'm the one that gets to choose what to do with it. And I choose to take it to those fuckers and get rid of them once and for all. Because maybe then we'll all be safe, and maybe _then_ I can marry my girlfriend."

Yelena sighed. "Nina..."

Pulling a face, Nina pushed Yelena away and threw up her hands. "What? That's your favorite excuse, isn't it? They'll track your name on the paperwork. You're not a citizen or a national. Or what the fuck ever. I've given up asking you."

"I'm trying to protect you!"

 _"Then let me help protect myself!"_ Nina cried. She ran her hands through her hair in an agitated manner. "I mean, I know I haven't been at this as long as you, but I'm not new. I'm not a baby, I'm not a complete idiot. Constantly hiding and living in fear is not living, Lena," she added softly, reaching out for Yelena. "I know you just want us safe. But maybe tucking us away in the country somewhere isn't the way to do it, either."

Sighing, Yelena let herself be pulled in closer, and she touched her forehead to Nina's. "What would I do if they took you away from me, Nina? What would I do if they killed you?"

"Burn them all," Nina replied promptly.

She couldn't help but laugh, and Nina wrapped her arms around Yelena. "I'm more innocent than the original, sure. But I can still be vicious if I need to be. And don't forget. What would I do if they took _you_ from _me?"_

Acknowledging that truth, Yelena nodded, her expression softening a bit. "Then I guess we're still stuck together."

Nina laughed a little at Yelena's playfully aggrieved tone. "I guess we are. Gonna let me make an honest woman of you?"

"When I deserve it," Yelena replied, tucking Nina's hair behind her ears. "When you're all safe and there are no threats hanging over your heads."

"It might be a long time, Lena. You can't let those assholes dictate our happiness."

Yelena didn't have an answer for her, but that was just as well. She wasn't the only one with connections by now, and Nina was definitely willing to use hers.

Which is how she found herself sitting in the plaza square two weeks later, waiting for a contact that Nancy insisted would be trustworthy.

 _"Hola, señorita,"_ a voice said behind her. "A yellow rose, to complement your spectacular beauty," he added with a smile, extending the flower out to her.

Nina smiled at him and took it, then tucked it into her hair. A silly little gesture, but one that confirmed she was the one Nancy wanted him to meet. "Nina."

"Ah, yes you are," he purred, Spanish accent thicker than before.

"And you are?" she prompted when he made no move to introduce himself. He was tall and lanky, with dark hair, dark eyes and olive skin. He was handsome and knew it, if the smirk on his face was any indication, which would have been an immediate turn off if she was interested in men at all.

"Javier Uraynar," he said with a slight bow. He sat down on the bench beside her. "I've never met your sister, _señorita,"_ he murmured. "Nancy and I only spoke in text or on the phone. She said you look like her, and I am dazzled by your beauty."

"Nice save," Nina replied, managing not to roll her eyes. "But I have a girlfriend."

"Ah. Very well. I may dream of you, yes?" he asked with a playful smile.

Now she _did_ roll her eyes. "How can you help me, Javier?"

He took her hand in an intimate gesture and raised it to his lips. "You can at least _look_ as though you're meeting a lover, yes? If there are indeed eyes on you..."

She got his meaning right away, but pulled her hand back. "Maybe you're the lover that has to make it up to me. You're not trying hard enough."

Javier's eyes twinkled. "Oh, I _do_ like you. Nancy wasn't sure if you could play a role, but I see there is far more to you than she is aware of."

"It helps to have the proper motivation."

"Staying alive is certainly that," he replied with a grin. Standing up, he extended his hand out to her. "I propose a café, we talk of things so that I may enter your good graces. _Then_ I see how best I can help you stay alive."

"There's my girlfriend and other sisters to consider," she said slowly, taking his hand. "Some of them have families and don't want to leave them."

"You see? Much to discuss and plan for."

"What's in it for you?" Nina asked suspiciously.

Though he laughed, Javier had a flinty look in his eyes. "Any opportunity to get back at the Vory or Hydra should not be wasted. In some areas, the two work hand in hand."

"Who did they take?" she whispered, allowing him to pull her to her feet.

"You would not know them," he replied shortly.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, touching his chest lightly and looking up into his face with an earnest expression. "I really am. I'm not just saying it because I want something from you."

His expression softened and he brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek. "I know, Nina. I am not angry with you, but with those who believed they can own the world. So it would be my pleasure to ensure that they do not do this again."

"There aren't many out there who are willing to go up against Hydra."

Javier's grin was fierce. "But they exist, and I am one of them. We do what we can, little by little, until it is enough. They are a many-headed beast, so they must be attacked on many fronts at once to be eliminated."

"You think it can be done?"

"I've managed to eliminate a few nests of Vory." He laughed at Nina's obvious startle in response to his words. "Yes, it can be done. Difficult, but it can be done." He led her to a café near the plaza, walking at a leisurely pace.

"So now what?" she asked, frowning slightly.

"So now we take a stroll, learn your strengths and weaknesses. And then we plan, because the Vory are some distance from here, but Hydra is not."

"Wait, they're not?"

"Of course not."

"The reports on the news all made it sound as though Hydra was destroyed in this country..."

Javier snorted derisively. "Propaganda. How could the government eliminate Hydra if they don't even know who their agents are? They have cells _everywhere,_ and also have worked to change the minds of other agents they find."

"Then how do we undo that?"

Running a finger gently along the slope of her nose, Javier grinned. "There are ways, but it is long and difficult. I have turned one against them, who also works to try to undo the reign of terror they leave behind. And if we wipe out information about you and your sisters along the way, so much the better."

"Hydra is evil, for sure," Nina told him, returning his smile. "I'll do whatever I can to help, and I know my girlfriend will, too." She gave his arm a confident squeeze, beaming a little. "She's much better than I am at combat tactics, hand to hand, planning... I learned all that stuff from her, and she learned all of it from master tacticians."

 _"Bueno,"_ he said with a wide smile. "So let us begin."

***  
***


	3. Sliding

Natasha stood up from her crouch beside the Vory member she had just killed. The rest of the apartment was dingy and littered with more bodies. She supposed she should feel guilty about this, adding more red to her ledger, but perhaps this didn't count. These weren't good men, after all. Even if they knew nothing about her sister's murder, they were still involved in human trafficking and drug sales, as well as intimidating local shop owners into paying "protection" money. How many lives was she potentially saving by killing them? It was impossible to make a clear accounting.

And anyway, that was a horrible line of thinking to get into. None of the men here had known anything. In fact, they hadn't even known who she was, and she hadn't bothered to mask her identity at all. It was disappointing, really. She had wanted them to tremble in fear at the sight of her, as irrational as that was, because she wanted to have them afraid before they died, she wanted them to be _sorry_ for killing her sister, for being worthless pieces of shit—

Okay. She had to calm down. Clenching her hands into tight fists, Natasha forced her breathing to even out. Samantha wasn't coming back from the dead. Killing these men hadn't done anything at all. She was in Moscow, how could they not know what was going on?

Shoving one of the dead bodies away from his computer, Natasha bit her lip as she started going through it. The stupid men hadn't even passworded it, and everything was there for her to find if she wished to.

And oh, how she wished to.

Trawling through the computer and its networks, she found all their holdings. Most of them would be impossible to take out on her own, so she passed it along to Clint via their usual secure channels outside of SHIELD networks. Fyed might be able to wrangle a paycheck out of it, he was good at that sort of thing. Funneling a few accounts that were otherwise untraceable to Coulson should help him with rebuilding what was left of SHIELD.

No inside chatter on Samantha's murder, not even gloating at killing Natalia Romanova. They didn't even have the files she had dumped onto the internet, which made her feel almost insulted. Didn't they think she was a threat?

_There._

Digging further into their network, she found a whole separate directory that had been hidden behind a series of firewalls. The idiots she had killed wouldn't have known how to find this, let alone be able to access it. This was where the truly sensitive information was, and there were all the files she had been expecting to find. That assuaged her ego a bit; as much as she didn't necessarily want to be feared, having a reputation with the underworld did make her job easier at times. All she had to do was mention her code name and some of the fools out there practically wet themselves to avoid getting her knives embedded in their bodies.

Clint had already taken care of Lyudmila, so Natasha ignored that and continued scrolling through the other communiqués that she could find. There had to be a reason why the Vory was going after her, and not just because she had burned her cover identities. It was a calculated move, but a necessary one. She had built up one or two new ones, simpler than her old ones had been, and not quite as thorough. They looked a lot like Samantha's background, actually.

Finally, she found a variant of her name in a communiqué from several years before. It was enough to have her frowning in confusion for a moment.

 _Though she looks very similar, Olga Shevchenko is not Natalia Romanova. Three separate inquiries led to this conclusion,_ went one message from a Vory commander to a lieutenant. _Assign a match to ensure this remains the case. The Black Widow has escaped our net many times already._

The name wasn't even remotely familiar, so Natasha dug a little farther into the files. Seeing that there was a picture of Olga, she opened the file.

And stared at a picture of her with blonde hair.

Natasha then dove into the information they had on Olga, some of which had been collected by her abusive boyfriend, who was a low level member of the Vory who thought they were interested in whoring out Olga. He apparently wasn't opposed to such instruction if that was what they planned, only demanding a share of the profit. _She made mention of not wanting to be for sale again,_ the bastard wrote. _I don't know what she's referring to, and the other sales members don't remember her. I've stopped short of breaking her bones so she can still work at the factory, but she still refuses to answer questions._

She saw red and wished he was in front of her so that she could teach him not to prey on women.

Calming herself down, Natasha committed the information to memory and copied whatever looked interesting onto a flash drive.

One sister that looked like her was a possibility, however painful. But two? Something more devious had to be at work here, and she wouldn't put it past the Red Room at all.

***

Isabella dropped a six pack of Sam Adams on Clint's desk. She grinned as he looked up in surprise. "C'mon, Barton. You haven't been paying any attention to what's on your computer screen. Hell, I was able to hit up the bodega on the corner and come back with you none the wiser," she added, tapping the top of one of the bottles with a manicured fingernail.

"All right, you got me," he admitted with a sigh.

"Classified?"

Clint blew out a breath and weighed his options. "I wasn't told it was," he said finally.

Lighting up, Isabella dropped into the seat in front of Clint's desk and reached for one of the bottles. "Oooh. Sounds like a story. I've always loved story time."

His laughter was hollow, and he shook his head as he reached for a bottle. "Story time would be if I wanted to talk to you about my exes."

"You still can."

Now the laughter was more genuine, and Clint returned Izzy's shameless grin. "Naw, that'll just highlight how pathetic I can look."

"You think I don't know that already, Barton?" she asked in arch tones.

"You wound me, Izzy, you really do." He laughed along with her and cracked open the bottle he had taken. "All right, here's the situation. Natasha isn't really dead."

Izzy nearly dropped her bottle. "Come again?"

"Samantha must be a twin sister, since the genetic profile is a match to SHIELD records. She is very much dead, and I helped catch the Vory snitch. Locals didn't know what to ask or what pressure points to use."

"Yeah, yeah, we figured as much. That's why you went up there. But what's this about your old partner having a twin? Because that is in _none_ of the records published."

"Yeah, well, she didn't put them _all_ out there. Just stuff SHIELD had on her and what she did in SHIELD's name."

"That's splitting hairs."

"Remember, spy thinking." Izzy groaned and rolled her eyes, but took a drink of her beer along with Clint. "But Tasha was there in my room when I got back. It was definitely her, while Samantha was still very, very dead. Natasha remembers a fire when she was little, when she was taken in by the Red Room."

Izzy winced. "There are no good tales about that place."

"Exactly. That's her childhood, Izzy. They told her that her mother died in the fire."

"But they could have lied," Izzy said, realization dawning. She sat back in her chair, eyes wide as she looked at Clint. "No wonder you've been in la-la land all day. That's a doozy of information to have to process out of nowhere."

"So of course Tasha is off on a revenge mission of her own making."

"Of course."

"Taking out the Vory," Clint reminded Izzy.

"You say that like you think she can't do it."

He chuckled and took a healthy swig of his beer. "Okay, yes, she could probably do it. Definitely do it, if she's angry enough."

"Hey, they lied to her about her family her entire life. Then killed the sister she didn't know about having. Hell yeah, she'd be angry enough. _I_ would be angry enough, and you know how calm I am in the face of stupidity."

Clint snorted and shook his head. "I've been waiting for any chatter on the Vory. Or Hydra."

"We're more likely to get Hydra chatter, you know. Fyed has some vested interest in keeping those goons from poaching SHIELD agents. He's trying to get there first, but sometimes he can't find them or hire them on fast enough."

"He's a good guy."

"Yeah. The intel business is a mess right now, and it's so hard to tell who the good guys are anymore," Izzy said with a sigh. They both drank their beers contemplatively. "We can help her, you know. Even if she didn't expressly ask for it."

"How do you figure?"

"C'mon. She's going up against the Vory. If she stumbles at all, do you really think any of the intelligence agencies over there would let her go?"

Clint sighed. "She's a walking dead woman right now, though."

"That'll only get her so far. But if we do more than just listen for chatter, but put out a cover identity for one of our agents. Say she's looking into human trafficking or something. God knows the Vory do that all the time, as often as people try to shut them down. It gives her something to fall back on if her own covers fall through."

"Okay, we can do that. It'll be a matter of letting her know."

"That's on you, man." Izzy leaned forward and pointed at him with her beer. "You know her, you know the likely ways to get through to her."

"They're saying she should be dead," Clint murmured in a pained tone. "Fucking CNN thinks she was a terrorist and Congress never should have let her go. All of those stupid commentators, you'd think liberals would understand the shit she has to do to keep people safe."

"C'mon, nobody in the media understands what we do."

Scrubbing his jaw tiredly, Clint nodded. "Maybe if there were some Hydra goons I can shoot at, I'd feel a helluva lot better."

Izzy grinned. "Now, that, I can try to do. Fyed has some people around Europe who are making it their life's work to break those asshats. I think they'd very much appreciate your input and expertise. The US side of things is harder to peel apart right now."

"All right. You make that cover for Tash. I'll pass it along and take out some Hydra agents." He grinned at her widely. "You know, I feel better all right."

"You're a man of action, Barton. Sitting and moping just isn't your style. Gimme an hour, and I'll have her backup identity ready to go."

"You are a wonderful human being, Izzy."

"Remember that when Hydra agents are shooting their bullshit tech at you."

They both laughed, then moved to their respective desks to begin their work.

***

Moscow was busy and growing colder, people bundled up as much as they could against the biting wind. Winter was on its way, and the dreary weather had already begun. Prospekt Mira was one of the neighborhoods that tourists rarely went; there were few traps to visit, few parks, little to serve as distraction from unrelieved concrete and traffic. It was a place more for locals to live, and if they wanted culture, they could visit the same landmarks that tourists went to. 

Olga Shevchenko had lived there for over eight years, and her boyfriend of seven years was Pyotr Ivanov. At first she had thought it was a positive sign, given that one of the agents that had rescued her had been Ivan, but she soon realized that it was mere coincidence. Ivan was simply a common name, so the patronymic would be common as well. She paid attention to what he did and didn't say, and figured out that he was part of the Vory. There would be no getting away from him, but at least she sidestepped the offer of marriage and children fairly well. Though she had no idea of the abuse she suffered years ago had led to permanent damage, she certainly wasn't going to risk having children with Pyotr. She could barely fend off his more abusive rages at times, and she certainly wouldn't be able to protect a child. He didn't seem to care about the question of children, as that meant he could continue to sleep with her whenever he wanted; her own consent wasn't always required as far as he was concerned.

Her instincts _burned,_ telling hwer to get away, to slit his throat and run, to take down anyone that might stop her from leaving. But the ones that would stop her were Vory, and no one crossed them and lived. She didn't have the contact information for the agents that had rescued her, and the only information she had was for Marcia Packesein, who likely was another former victim herself. What good would that be?

So she stayed and lied about loving Pyotr, loathing her life and the web of lies she had woven around herself. She was alive, but at what cost?

Marcia had tried calling her a few days before, but Olga never picked up. The other woman hated leaving messages, and her warning was so vague it was all but useless. Olga refused to meet her throughout the years. What for? She was just another victim, just another woman Pyotr and the Vory would want to exploit.

Shift over, Olga began to trudge her way home. It was a pathetic existence, but the choices were hers. A non-choice, really, but still her choice to submit to Pyotr, rather than risk any Vory retribution or death. That thought helped her whenever she covered her black eyes with makeup or bruises with long sleeves. Or, if the colors were just right, she made her eye shadow match the bruises. It was a matter of choice, she told herself; traffickers would give her none.

Steps echoed behind her, strides matching hers exactly. Not Pyotr or the goons he liked to call friends, but eerie and more nerve wracking. There were no traffickers in the area but the Vory, and she'd made her lack of interest in whoring known. None of that, no drug running. Factory work was boring, but her job just the same, her choice to continue.

It was all about her choices now, even the pathetic ones. At least it was hers to make.

Tired, Olga changed direction to take one of her circuitous routes home. Good thing she'd practiced for this eventuality. Good thing she didn't really trust Pyotr to keep her safe.

Eventually, Olga could almost convince herself she was being silly. Almost. She still had that sixth sense along her spine, and she _knew_ someone was out there. She knew these things; once known, there was no shaking the darkness out of her mind, no wiping her past clean to make her innocent and trusting. There was no erasing the terrible pain that was her earliest memory, coming to while being brutally assaulted, then witnessing her rapist's murder by a Consortium member "for damaging the goods." Not because she was worth helping, but because her sale price would've been higher had she still been a virgin.

But they were dead, all dead. Yelena and Ivan had promised her as much before getting her where she wanted to go. For some reason Olga had wanted to go to Moscow, but there wasn't anything for her engineering and technical skills but factory work.

She was ready to take on whoever was following her, a box cutter in her pocket; it was one of the few things that the Vory would accept, because if she cut up the wrong soldier, scars would only add to his esteem. Killing one would render her life forfeit. Besides, she had cut up enough soldiers to make it clear that only Pyotr could hit her with impunity. And even then, sometimes she was tempted to cut _him._

The echoing footsteps stopped when she did. Her hand closed around the switchblade in her pocket as she turned around, determined to face whoever is was following her.

She was the same height as Olga, with a halo of red hair. Backlit, her facial features were shrouded in deep black shadows. She could see Olga's face clearly enough, and her breath caught in her throat.

"We have much to discuss, I think," the woman told her in perfect Russian, her voice sounding just like Olga's.

Fear coiled deep in her gut. What kind of game was the Vory playing now? "Who are you?"

The woman stepped forward, into a puddle of light. She smiled grimly at Olga's shock, their facial features and body shape exactly alike. "I am Natalia Romanova. We need to figure out what's going on."

"Why?"

"Because another woman with our face was killed, and I believe it's my fault."

"Why is it your fault?" Olga asked, frowning. She let go of the switchblade's handle as she approached the redhead cautiously.

"Because she was a nurse and I'm the Black Widow."

The name meant nothing to Olga, but she had seen any number of killers over the years to see how they moved. The redhead definitely moved like a killer, and a good one at that. "Come with me, then. Pyotr should be home late, so there will still be vodka left to drink. I have the feeling we will need it."

There wasn't much farther to go, and Olga wondered at the silence. Neither seemed willing to break it, and the street was not a safe place for this conversation anyway.

The vodka was cheap and rough going down in the only clean shot glasses left in the dingy apartment. Olga even brought out some snacks, though Natasha didn't seem hungry; as much as she had introduced herself with the Russian name, she quickly corrected Olga and instructed her to call her Natasha Romanoff. "It's so American," Olga had replied, wrinkling her nose.

"It's where I've been living for a few years," Natasha replied slowly. "Let me tell you what I've discovered so far."

A twin sister, blonde, flimsy background prior to ten years ago. The Vory killed her, thinking she was Natasha, who was an international spy for an organization that just fell apart. It was the perfect time for them to do it without fear of reprisal. The only problem was, it wasn't actually Natasha Romanoff they had killed.

"So I started slitting the throats of the Vory," she said, voice hard. "So imagine my surprise when I find they have a file on you, and you seem to be yet another twin sister."

Olga blinked at her. "My memories only go back ten years."

Natasha went very still. "Ten years."

"I was trafficked." Olga said this very matter of factly, no inflection to her voice. "The agents that saved me said they tended to erase memories. To make the sales easier."

Her pale skin was even paler now. "And then?"

"Some training as an engineer, but no jobs in the field. So I came here, got a factory job, met Pyotr, the bastard." Olga downed another shot. "I have to say I love him, he is Vory. I'd rather not, he's a bastard to me. But I am free, so I don't complain too much."

"He hits you."

"On occasion, if he is very drunk, he does more than that."

Natasha carefully put down her shot glass, and Olga had the feeling she would have rather thrown it across the room. "I'll kill him."

"Marcia says that, too. But if you kill him, the Vory will kill me."

Her eyes glittered. "Let them come. I plan to kill all the ones I can find." 

Olga took another shot, amused. "This is Moscow. There are a lot of them to find here."

Natasha nodded briskly. "Who's Marcia?"

"There's a network of a few of us that escaped the traffickers and storage facilities. She's the one that keeps in contact with me. I lie and tell Pyotr she's a cousin."

"So you have a place to go..."

"I won't bring the Vory down on her head."

"I'm here now. I could help you get away."

"Who are you, that you think you're better than the Vory?"

"I'm the Black Widow."

Olga's expression didn't shift at all. "And why do we look the same, then?"

Natasha sighed. "I don't know. One other woman, I could say that maybe I have a twin. They're not that uncommon. But another one? Identical triplets are rare."

"You don't know your family, either," Olga observed. "If you did, you would know for sure."

"There was a fire when I was young."

"So it's _possible,"_ Olga said, leaning forward. Her eyes were fever bright, needing this to be true more than Natasha did, obviously.

"Unlikely," Natasha replied softly.

"But—"

Olga's words were cut off by the rattle of keys in the lock. "Pyotr," she said, lips twisting into a sour look. "He ruins everything."

The door banged open, and Pyotr entered, kicking the door shut behind him as he bellowed "Olga, you bitch! Come here!"

He was tall and blond, solidly built, with a sharp, jutting chin, ice blue eyes and thin lips that thinned with displeasure at the sight of Olga and Natasha sitting at the table. "Fucking useless cunt," he snarled at Olga, ignoring Natasha for the moment. "I had to get my own booze. Where was the vodka, you whore?" He shook the bag with beer in it at her.

She turned away from him. "You don't even like vodka."

"Fuck you, it was mine."

Pyotr dropped the beer onto the table. "Who's this?" he asked, peering at Natasha with bleary, bloodshot eyes. "This bitch looks like you."

Natasha's eyes narrowed at Pyotr, and she shifted her position in the chair when his hand came to rest heavily on Olga's shoulder, fingers digging in. "Get your hand off of her."

"Fuck you. You're nothing but a useless whore friend of hers, aren't you? Do you know who I am? Do you know who I work for? I am Vory, you stupid bitch. If I want you dead, you will be. If I want you raped, you will be. Shut your goddamn mouth." Each sentence was punctuated by a slap or punch at an unresisting Olga.

Rising fluidly, Natasha held Pyotr in contempt. "I'll kill you." She dipped her gaze to Olga's stricken face. "Unless for some reason you don't want me to."

"The Vory..."

Pyotr had started to swing at Natasha then, but she caught his fist and twisted her own. That knocked Pyotr off his feet and to the floor. A swift kick to his solar plexus with the solid wood heel of her boot knocked the wind out of him.

Natasha hadn't looked away from Olga. "They're not a consideration. What do you want?"

"If they're nothing to fear?" Olga confirmed. Natasha nodded, and she looked down a Pyotr's frightened face. "Fucking kill him, then. Seven years of my life wasted with this asshole, just because I did not want the Vory after me."

She moved quickly, striking Pyotr's throat and dodging his attempt to grab her. Natasha grabbed his swinging arm and tucked into a roll; it wrenched his arm out of the socket and caused him to bellow in pain and rage. "I'll fucking kill you, you fucking bitch! You're going to pay!"

But she was on the floor with him, and caught his head between her thighs. She squeezed and shifted into a slightly different position, which turned Pyotr onto his side. He tried to push her off but couldn't, and his hands slammed down into the floor a few times. "Sit on his back," Natasha commanded, a grim smile on her face. "I shouldn't have all the fun."

Olga sitting on his back provided just enough pressure and torque to push Pyotr's vertebrae out of joint. The crack of his spine breaking was loud. Natasha tightened her hold on his neck a little tighter, pushing his neck at an even further odd angle, just to be sure.

"He's dead," Olga breathed, looking down at Pyotr's glassy eyes in shock. "Just sitting did that?"

"He wasn't a good fighter at all." Natasha disentangled herself and stood, then offered Olga a hand up. "Most of them really aren't, not when guns and threats do the work for them."

"So why don't you think the Vory are coming after us for this?" she asked, looking down at Pyotr's lifeless body on the floor.

"Because everyone knew he beat you."

"They don't interfere out of fear," she replied, a sour note to her voice.

"Well, tonight, he just killed you. And took off with your body."

Olga blinked. "Wait, what?"

Natasha smiled, and it wasn't very pleasant. Olga could suddenly see why she wasn't scared of the Vory at all. "We're using his reputation against him. Pack yourself a single bag, light, only the essentials. I can buy us anything else you might need. Nothing obvious can be missing, unless it's something normally on your body."

"Good thing I don't have too much jewelry," Olga muttered, heading to her bedroom.

"Where does Marcia live?" Natasha asked, making the living area look like a bigger mess. Olga tried not to wince at the sound of breaking glass and the helpless cry that Natasha let out, adding to the fiction that Olga was being murdered.

"Berlin," Olga replied. "She's a martial arts instructor. I know that much. Oh, and she's part of a network to protect the other girls that were trafficked like I was."

"Good. Someone like that will definitely keep you safe."

"You're not going to stay with me?" Olga asked, coming out of her bedroom in shock. She knew how to pack quickly, especially since she didn't have too many nice things to begin with. Her bag had two other jeans, five shirts scrunched tight, underthings, six pairs of socks, her hidden stash of money and jewelry. It didn't hurt to leave behind the cheap pieces she wore to work, but she wasn't going to leave behind the good pieces for neighbors to steal later.

"I was hoping to avenge a twin sister."

"And now you found a third," Olga murmured.

Natasha picked up Pyotr, shouldering his weight as if he was a friend who was merely passed out drunk. "Something is wrong with this picture. I'll get you to a contact I know for a full set of papers. Then we'll go to Berlin to see your friend, get you safe. Once you're safe, then I'll start looking into what the hell is happening."

Olga pressed her lips together grimly. "You think I can survive on my own if the Vory find out?"

"They're not going to look for a dead woman."

Picking up a broken shard of glass, Natasha let it slice her fingers. She shook her hand, scattering droplets of blood on the floor and wall. Then a few steps to the side, she fell into a graceless lurch, grasping the wall with her bloody hand, smearing blood as she pushed off of it. She looked over at Olga, who was gaping at her. "Best to make it all look the part."

"Who _are_ you?" Olga breathed, stunned. Natasha did this all dispassionately, as if establishing a cover story like this made no difference to her.

Maybe it didn't.

"I told you. Now, it's time to go."

Olga followed all of Natasha's directions in Moscow, and felt absolutely nothing when Pyotr's body slid beneath the river water. It wasn't necessary for her to smile for the new documents made up, and the precious hours lost there gave her enough time to think and wonder about this woman that held her same physical body and face but entirely different skill set. Natasha got her out of Moscow, out of Russia, and they drove into Berlin as promised.

It was easy for Natasha to find Marcia's dojo. Olga hadn't ever been in Berlin, but Natasha had been there a number of times. "You don't want to know what I was doing in Berlin," Natasha had told her when she asked how Natasha knew the city so well. Olga kept quiet for a while after that, sure that there were no good stories to be told about Natasha's prior visits.

They walked into the dojo, which was arranged with an open waiting area, a dividing wall and the locker room off to the right with changing area and bathrooms. The two lookalike women sat in the waiting area during the class Marcia was teaching, not wanting to interrupt.

"What are we even going to tell her?" Olga murmured.

"You can tell her the truth. She deserves to know what you're up against, though I really don't think they'll be coming to look for you."

"How can you be so certain?"

"Contrary to Pyotr's belief, he wasn't very important."

Olga gave her a thin smile. "That much, I already knew."

They lapsed into silence, then waited for all of the students to leave. There wasn't another class lined up according to the calendar on the wall.

Natasha stood, taking the lead to walk into the practice area. She stopped short, and Olga nearly crashed into her. "What the hell, Natasha?" Olga said, frowning. Then she turned toward Marcia herself, and immediately understood.

Standing in front of them was Marcia Packesein. She was exactly their height, had their exact facial features and green eyes. Her hair was black, pulled back into a pony tail at the back of her head. She fell into the same defensive posture that Natasha did, her expression betraying nothing of the surprise that Olga was feeling.

"I think we all need to talk," Natasha said.

"Yes, perhaps we do," Marcia replied.

She had their same voice and inflections, too.

***  
***


	4. Meetings

Javier smiled warmly as he reached across the table and shook Clint Barton's hand. It was a work lunch in a public place, just outside of Madrid; he still planned to help Nina take apart a Hydra safe house, just in case they were the ones threatening her and her sisters. "Fyed says many a good thing about you, Mr. Barton."

Clint leaned back in his chair. "You are aware that he can be a filthy liar."

"We are all spies, Mr. Barton. Believe me, I am aware." They shared a laugh and each man ordered a light lunch. "Fyed and I have known each other a long time. He has good judgment, and always has good intel."

"Now that I don't work for SHIELD, I can work for him."

"I have helped him on a number of occasions to liberate former agents from Hydra. I suppose you're here to help in such an endeavor."

"I have some anger to work off, yeah."

"Very good. I'm doing it to help pass the time." He sighed when there was a light beeping noise from his pocket. "Another pressing issue, I'm afraid. Can I be terribly rude and check the message here?"

Clint gestured in his direction. "Go ahead. You never know when messages can be life or death."

"Yes, they can be." Javier unlocked his phone and looked at the message. "My new friend is running a little late. An emergency with some distant sisters of hers."

"Oh?"

"You will probably be able help me with that endeavor, if you like. It's more general protection detail, since we aren't sure if there are credible threats to her family."

"Does Fyed allow you to hire on new people for jobs?"

"This is a personal job, not one for Fyed."

"I was aware that he let you still do personal stuff, but..."

"A favor for a friend," Javier interrupted smoothly. "She's an IT specialist in America."

"There's got to be a story in that. That's a long way from Madrid," Clint said with a grin.

Javier shot him a rueful glance, then shook his head. "She caught me breaking into her network," he began with a smile and shrug, as if to say _Oh, well, these things do happen._ "Somehow we got to talking, and a friendship was struck. She taught me something about firewalls, I taught her something about the spy networks."

"So you're doing her a favor now?"

"Something like that."

"Well, good luck with the job, whatever it is."

"Don't you want in?"

"I already have a job."

Javier nodded, and fell silent as their server returned with lunch. "This is likely to be short," he said quietly. "I've spoken with Nina at length, and there seem to be good protections in place already. It's a matter of picking up the scattered sisters and putting in the defenses. Rather like how they did sieges in the Middle Ages."

"Who are they up against?"

"Possibly only Vory."

"Only?" Clint scoffed.

"A number had been stolen by human traffickers to sell to the highest bidder. Such men are not just in the Vory. We only know of the Vory killing one sister so far."

Clint let out a breath. "Shit like that makes you lose your faith in humanity."

"Oh, I lost mine a long time ago."

They fell into companionable silence as they finished their lunches. Javier wanted to stay for coffee and dessert to wait for his friend Nina. Not in a particular hurry, Clint remained for coffee and dessert as well. They talked about Hydra bases and safe houses, the SHIELD codes, fail safes and redundancies that they were exploiting in order to poach agents. A few minutes of this, and Javier brightened. "Ah, there she is."

Nina had a warm smile for Javier and slid into the seat between the two men. "Lena is parking the car now. She sent me on ahead so you wouldn't think we stood you up," she explained, not noticing Clint's wide eyes and slack jaw yet.

"So thoughtful. But I did get your message, so I wasn't worried." He gestured toward Clint as he smiled at Nina. "This is my new friend, Clint. He also works for Fyed—" He broke off abruptly when he turned and saw Clint's expression. "Clint?"

"You look just like Natasha," Clint breathed, blinking. "And Samantha."

Instead of saying something like _I don't know what you're talking about_ or _Who are you anyway?_ , Nina merely gave him an assessing look. "How do you know them?"

"Natasha's my best friend," Clint said, unable to take his eyes off of Nina. "And I confirmed Samantha's body as Natasha even though I knew it wasn't true. What the hell is going on?"

"That, Agent Barton," another woman said as she slid into the empty seat at the table, "is a very long story. Highly classified."

"And you are?"

She smiled, her blue eyes dancing with amusement. Leaning back, she brushed her blonde hair away from her shoulders. "Yelena Belova. Contemporary of Natasha's and a fellow Red Room survivor. Unlike her, however, I still remember quite a bit about where I come from."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, they never got a chance to erase my memories and unmake me as they did with her. It might have happened at some point, and I was very upset at the time that it hadn't. But among other things, not only did they erase much of what made Natalia Alianovna Romanova, they also created copies. Backups to the system. Training a Black Widow is a very expensive endeavor, and they didn't want to be without a fully operational copy if something happened to the original Black Widow while on a mission."

Clint understood right away. "They cloned her."

"They did," Yelena confirmed. "There are twenty-eight girls in the Red Room. Twenty-eight copies of the girls earning the highest marks. And as of right now? Only eleven copies are left," she said, voice hard. "Dinah's been killed."

"The emergency you mentioned," Javier said, looking at Nina.

She was pale and visibly upset. "Nancy couldn't get a hold of her. So she made some inquiries, some dumbass excuse to talk to the city social worker, whatever. Dinah wasn't there, hadn't called in to work in three days. It's not like her, Dinah's anal retentive about schedules and doing everything the way it's supposed to be done. It was enough to get others suspicious, and police went to her house to do a well check. She's been dead for a week."

"Any idea who?" Javier asked, concerned.

Nina shook her head. "At least, not by the police report Nancy could find."

"They're apparently taking the abusive ex-boyfriend line of inquiry," Yelena added.

"Should they not have?" Clint asked, confused.

"Oh, she's got a string of exes," Yelena replied with a dismissive wave. "Dinah loved being in a relationship, but she got frustrated easily and wasn't really interested in trying to make it work in the long term. None of them were abusive, so that's a dead end. It was violent and brutal, and apparently written on the wall in her blood were the words 'You will pay,' which is why they're going that route. Still wrong, though."

"That's pretty disturbing."

"It's probably deliberate, to throw them off the trail," Nina told Clint. "Nancy swears she has North America locked down, and she will keep working at them. Stubborn, just like the original one was," she told Clint with a wry smile.

"Wait. _Original?"_ he asked. "You know Natasha, too?"

"Not too many of us know what we are," Nina told him in a straightforward manner. "I only know of her. I do know that we are all clones of Natasha Alianovna Romanoff, inadvertently defrosted when she burned down the Red Room ten years ago." She gave him a wide grin. "Didn't see that one coming, now did you?"

"No, can't say that I did," he agreed.

Yelena smirked and leaned forward into the table. "So. Most of the ladies here in Europe refuse to leave their homes and lives. I don't want to uproot them if I don't have to, so we'll need your help to make sure we have more security measures in place."

"And kick a little Hydra ass," Javier added.

"But of course," Yelena replied, still smirking. "Might as well have a little fun along the way."

***

A fresh pot of tea and three cups sat in front of Marcia, Olga and Natasha. "There are layers to the story," Marcia began slowly. "The things we told the girls, the things we left out. I'm one of the few that know the whole story."

"Why?"

"Because they couldn't avoid telling it to me when I was found," Marcia told Olga. She took her cup and sipped at her tea slowly. "If they could have, they would have skipped some of the very big details."

"Like why we all look alike," Natasha said.

Marcia nodded as Natasha took a sip of her tea. Feeling a little left out, Olga gulped her hot tea, then winced as it burned its way down her throat. "Tell me everything. I deserve to know."

"Deserve, yes. But the few of us that know the full story tend to protect the ones that don't."

"Protect them from who?" Natasha asked sharply. "The Vory still killed Samantha."

"And we don't know who killed Dinah," Marcia agreed with a sigh. "But after Samantha died, we've been warning the others. Most just refuse to go into hiding."

Olga nodded. "I wouldn't leave without good reason."

"And if it's not the Vory, who are you looking out for?" Natasha asked.

"Department X or its successors," Marcia replied.

Natasha went very still. "They're gone."

"Come now. Don't tell me you actually believe that."

Olga looked between the two women in front of her. "Yeah. You're telling me the entire story. Right. Now."

Marcia sighed, then nodded at Natasha. "This is Natasha Romanoff. Born Natalia Alianovna Romanova, one of the greatest prodigies of the Red Room." Natasha had gone very still. "With all of the dangerous missions she was sent on, the Red Room handlers didn't want to lose their investment. It's a massive undertaking in personnel and finances to properly train a Black Widow, after all."

Olga looked from Marcia to Natasha. "That's how you introduced yourself to me. The Black Widow, as if I should know the term."

"I suppose, having my face and the Vory keeping an eye on you, I thought you were part of the Red Room."

"Sort of, we all are," Marcia said, cutting off Olga's reply. "They cloned you. Different batches, not all of us surviving the process. And we were kept in stasis until needed."

Natasha looked stunned. "But... But then..."

"Not all of us were actually taken out of cryo. They remained blank slates, too easy to victimize when the protocols ran down."

"Ten years ago," Natasha guessed. For Olga's sake she added, "When I burned down the Red Room and killed all of the handlers."

"Exactly. We had help, two survivors who caught on and got us away. Skill sets, money, backgrounds. Nothing fancy, just enough to give us all a start."

Olga stared at her tea, then gulped it all down. "So we were never meant to be real."

"No. But we still are," Marcia told her.

"My life was terrible," Olga murmured. She looked from Natasha to Marcia. "The Vory had such a hold a hold on me, even if I never worked for them. Pyotr was an utter bastard to me for years."

"I did offer to kill him," Marcia reminded her.

"I should have taken you up on that offer."

"But as uncomfortable as it was, it was what you knew," Natasha murmured, picking up her cup. There was no tremor in her hands at all. "The unknown is frightening. But if you stick with what you know, you can react to it. You can prepare. You know what to expect."

"Our lives turned out completely differently," Marcia told them. "We're individuals, even if the source DNA was the same."

"Sisters," Natasha murmured. She appeared calm, but Olga could see now how very pale and still she was. She was controlling her shock the only way she knew how.

Knowing an internationally known assassin was rattled actually made Olga feel better. She wasn't the only one affected by this.

"I can call Nina, see if she and her girlfriend has a fallback plan. They were looking into some other central locations when I last spoke with her. And Nina was working with a friend of Nancy's, who has connections with spies or something. Nina was appropriately vague about it all, didn't go into detail."

"It's not the Vory that knows about them all," Natasha said quietly. "They killed Samantha thinking she was me. Because they thought I was without protection now that SHIELD has been torn apart and dismantled."

"But you weren't."

"I know how to disappear. She didn't know what hit her."

Olga could hear the quiet blame in her voice, and impulsively reached out to grasp her hand tightly. "But you didn't know we existed before."

"Now I do. And now I have to make sure you all survive."

"We're scattered all over. Shop girls and photographers and bakers and the like. Ordinary women now, not spies and assassins," Marcia told her.

"The friend of yours with connections," Natasha began slowly, thinking aloud. "We should all meet, see what resources are available. Because perhaps we can put contingency plans in place for all the ones that are left. Even if the Vory doesn't find some of them because they're not in those countries, Hydra is still in the shadows snapping up former SHIELD agents and whoever they think might be valuable. Anyone with my face might be snatched up, her mind wiped out and reprogrammed."

Marcia nodded. "They still have that kind of technology, even if they report that it was all seized on the news."

Natasha snorted her disbelief, and Olga merely looked at the two of them in concern. "Simple self defense won't be enough. And if these agencies aren't enough to help..."

"There are different things to do, depending on how far they're willing to go. The main thing would be to defeat facial recognition software and targeting algorhythms," Natasha said. "You would be surprised how well an oversized jacket and ball cap work, if you know what to keep an eye out for."

"It would be so much easier if there was only one agency to worry about," Olga sighed.

"The real world isn't nearly so obliging," Natasha replied. "So we'll have to make sure you stay alive and off the radar. The difficult part would be getting all of you to wrap your minds around hiding in plain sight. It's so much easier if you don't belong anywhere."

"Most of us belong somewhere," Marcia said. Though none of the three had ever met in person before, Olga thought she could hear disapproval in her tone.

Natasha definitely heard it. "Most of you aren't spies. But in order to survive without hiding in a safe house indefinitely, you're going to have to learn to move like one."

"It's more than just keeping your head down," Olga guessed.

"It's that, and knowing how people search and hunt, knowing how organizations think, knowing how they use the information that's out there. They have networks. Informants. Programs that sort through and shuffle data." Natasha looked at the two women with a stern expression. "Do you think you could do that? Could the others?"

"None of us live particularly exceptional lives," Marcia replied in droll tones.

"Some far more unexceptional than others," Olga added, a sour note to her voice.

"There will be rules about the rest of it, but that won't cover everything. It can't, when these agencies are changing all the time."

"Nancy has search programs for our names. And yours."

"It might not give enough reaction time," Natasha replied.

"Why is this even happening?" Olga said abruptly, frustration in her tone. "Why do we have to go through all this?"

"Because of me," Natasha said softly, as if it was a simple statement of fact. "Because of the things I've done, the horrors and atrocities and nightmares that I've been. Death and killing is only part of it. What you experienced while being trafficked is only a small part of the darker side of life out there. I've lived it, I've been it. You're all paying for my mistakes."

"So you need to help keep us safe," Olga said. "Teach us what we need to know. You make it sound like you're going to put up cameras or something, tell us to watch it and see if someone is creeping down the street. Something like that, by the time we see it, it's too late."

"I know," Natasha murmured. "But that's why I need to know what resources you already have, so I can factor them in. I have a few safe houses across the world that no one knows about, and I keep them active. That's one way out if any of you can get there. I have backup identities in each one, untraceable."

Olga covered her face and took a deep breath. "I put up with Pyotr because I knew I could not take out the Vory. And I am strong, I work in a factory. I'm smart, I'm a trained engineer. But I also know my limitations, and I could never escape any of those men if they chose to run me down and gut me like a fish as they did with that girl in Canada. How is some shop girl in a random city going to make it to one of your safe houses?"

Natasha's gaze was hollow and frightening; Olga actually shrank back from her. "Because I know people. And those people are not to be fucked with. Ever."

Marcia swallowed and nodded. "I'll call Nina."

***

Everyone decided to meet in Berlin; Marcia still had a number of classes to teach and didn't have a replacement instructor yet. The traveling time allowed Clint to get in touch with Fyed and get a lead on a few Hydra cells he thought existed en route. There were a few Hydra agents in Madrid that Javier and Clint killed before leaving the city, and apparently Nina and Yelena had made a pit stop in Marseilles and Geneva. Clint had wanted to go on ahead, since Marcia stated that Natasha was in Berlin with her, and he wanted to break the news about the other clones gently, if Marcia hadn't done it already.

How did you tell someone that the shady organization that trained them to be an amoral killer had also cloned them in case they were killed in action? How did you tell them that it wasn't their fault, no matter how much they might believe it was?

Clint had no idea. He was probably going to wing it, as he usually did in life.

He did place a call to Izzy and Steve in New York, just to be on the safe side. If Hydra or the Vory took them out, at least some of the other clones might be protected.

"Hey, before we head to the dojo," Javier began in an amiable tone, sorting through his weapons on the bed of their hotel room. "I have gotten some warning that AIM is in the area. There are some weapons and tech caches from SHIELD safe houses that might be floating about. Yelena and Nina are taking the long way around to be certain they weren't followed. Want a little more distraction?" he offered, sliding a wicked-looking blade into a sheath at the small of his back. He had two USP Compacts in shoulder holsters and three extra magazines attached to each holster; the entire rig would be covered by his heavy leather jacket.

Clint had to admit, the toys looked really good, even if they weren't his weapon of choice. He shook his head. "I should talk to Natasha."

"You think it'll make a difference if you see her now or later?"

"It'll make a difference to me."

Javier shrugged. "Oh, well. I will change up my tactics, then." He started digging through his duffel bag on the floor and found gauntlets that would fit under the sleeves of his coat. One contained a wrist blade and the other contained a garrote.

"Are you a fucking video game character or something?" Clint asked, eyes wide with surprise.

Laughing, Javier shook his head and put on his coat. "No, but some of them have very good ideas that are fun to use."

"Damn. I need to contact your supplier," Clint said, shaking his head.

"Fyed knows the armorer and weaponsmith. Independent contractor, very much hidden to stay out of the mess that the intelligence community is right now."

"He knows all the good contacts."

Nodding, Javier flexed his wrist with a snap, extending the hidden blade. "This one was very, very fun to use. I did feel like an assassin."

Clint snickered and let him leave to hunt AIM agents. He had a best friend to find.

At the dojo, he was struck by how similar Marcia moved to Natasha. He knew she would look the same, and the black hair didn't throw him at all. Natasha often changed hair colors to better blend in; everyone knew the Black Widow had intensely bright red hair, so changing it to blonde or black or brown meant that she could hide in plain sight. He hung back to see how Marcia taught an adult class, the fluid movements almost like dancing, the same way Natasha moved when fighting others. Other SHIELD agents had been straightforward in their attacks, had simply gone in and attacked. Natasha always moved with the utmost grace, highly efficient and almost ethereally beautiful, deadly and sharp to look at.

Marcia noticed him after dismissing her class and she casually moved to drink some bottled water. Students were chattering in the changing area, highlighting that this was essentially a very public place, even if it was Marcia's place of business. "I'm Clint Barton."

"When was the last time you saw her?" Marcia asked, no inflection in her tone.

"In Canada. She was a dead woman then," Clint said with a shrug. "Technically still is, since I never reported her presence to anyone." Well, no one but Izzy, but that was in confidence and not official in the slightest.

Unhooking a key from the ring on the desk, Marcia tossed at him. "Upstairs, left hand door."

"Javier's on his way."

"I got a text."

"Nina and Yelena..." he began.

"Called. They're in Geneva right now. It's a pit stop to get rid of some vermin." She gave Clint a mirthless smile. "They might make one more stop, depending on how the infestation is."

"Meaning if anyone talks."

"Yes. Agents too high up won't."

"Not unless it's under duress."

"But then you can't really trust what you get, can you?" Marcia asked pointedly. "I have another class in fifteen minutes for an hour or so. I won't be able to join you. Please don't break anything, huh? I'm not rolling in cash."

"Why would I break anything?"

"It's a standard warning I give visitors. I have a lot of very fragile things up there."

Which turned out to be electronics, and quite a bit of it. Monitoring stations, some desktop towers running search algorhythms, one that contained hacked CCTV footage. He immediately understood why she would be so concerned about her apartment.

Natasha was with another of her clones, talking in hushed tones about proper self defense techniques that she could use. Though she didn't stop what she was doing, her eyes took in Clint's presence and her demeanor warmed up. The other woman caught the shift and looked up to see Clint standing there. "One of yours?" she asked.

God, she sounded _just like_ Natasha, with a thick Russian accent.

"Clint, this is Olga. Olga, Clint. My best friend, formerly of SHIELD, now of Dynamic Solutions. You've clued in Fyed, of course?" she asked, head tilted to the side.

"Nope. This is off book so far. I gave a few friends a heads up, but not too many details."

"Thinking of going the safe house route?"

"I'm guessing that's what you're doing," Clint temporized, nodding in Olga's direction. The woman was looking at their interplay with wide eyes.

"It's an option. I already have a few safe houses. They might as well use them, since they're set up and I won't use them all once."

"The Vory thinking you're dead will only work for so long, you know. Hydra is impossible to track down, and there's always the other opposing factions out there that are glad SHIELD is demolished and in hiding." He walked over to the two women and sat down at the table near them. "There's no adding in years of training. All the old brainwashing tech that the Red Room had was destroyed, and we're not going to be able to get our hands on Hydra's."

"Are you sure?" Natasha asked.

"I don't like this idea to brainwash me." Olga abruptly stepped away from Natasha, eyeing her as if she was some strange thing she couldn't understand. Clint understood the feeling.

"It would be adding in skill sets. Like self defense, computer hacking, that kind of thing," Natasha said quietly. "Enough to help you stay off the grid."

"No. I don't want that."

"I wouldn't force you to do it," Natasha said, shaking her head. Olga didn't relax. "It's getting late. We've done enough for today."

Olga nodded and quickly slipped out of the apartment, heading to the other half of the floor without saying a word. Clint watched her go, then stood. Natasha looked after Olga almost uncertainly, as if weighing her options to approach her clone again. "Hey," he murmured, stepping closer to her. Opening his arms, he was gratified to have Natasha fall into them for a tight hug.

Natasha clutched him close, her face buried in his chest. "How am I going to do this? Keeping myself safe is easy. But all of them? Eleven of them?"

"You have friends," Clint murmured. "You don't have to do it alone."

"I can't make you do this for me..."

"You're not making me do anything. And I know the others would stand up and volunteer to help however they can." Clint stroked her back in a supportive manner. "None of us would think it's a hardship to help you. You're one of us, Nat."

She let out a sigh. "After SHIELD fell, I suppose I wasn't sure who I could trust anymore."

"The same handful you did before, you could now."

"I'd have to think about it," Natasha admitted. "It doesn't come naturally to me. I'm used to keeping myself buried under layers, protecting myself at all costs. I don't—sometimes I don't know who to trust. This whole thing with Hydra infiltrating SHIELD..."

Clint tightened his hug. "I understand. And we'll get through it. You have the tools. You just have to believe that you can do it."

Natasha pulled back far enough to grasp his face in her hands tenderly. "Thank you, Clint. For more than I can say in words."

He grinned and kissed the top of her head. "Let's see if you still say that when we're in the thick of things. But you're very welcome."

***  
***


	5. Confronting

Nina had her mahogany hair pulled back in a ponytail. Coupled with dangly earrings and a striped shirt over jeans, she looked like a teenager next to Yelena. "You make me feel like I'm robbing the cradle," Yelena teased.

"Well, technically, you are. I'm only ten, after all," Nina snarked, watching Yelena park her car near Marcia's dojo. "So. Given how I've comported myself on this trip... How ready do you think I am to be a professional badass?"

Yelena sighed and resisted the urge to shut her eyes or bonk her head on the steering wheel. "You are utterly incorrigible."

"You love me," Nina laughed, and playfully pouted at her. "So?"

"So?" Yelena parroted back at her, not wanting to answer. Nina had done a good job. She could fight, and she had Natasha's instincts. The sparring and training had really honed them, so that now that she was out in the field they came to the fore.

But she didn't want Nina to fight. She wanted Nina lying sprawled in her bed, limbs splayed in fucked out bliss, planning a wedding or some kind of future together. Hunting Hydra or AIM agents was not a stable lifestyle, and Yelena wanted better than that for Nina.

Nina poked Yelena in the side. "I kicked ass, Lena. Admit it."

"I don't have to," Yelena replied mulishly. She shut off the car and yanked out the car keys before looking at Nina solemnly. "I don't want you in the field. I don't want you getting hurt. I don't want you involved."

"It's too late. I'm already involved because of who I am. If you didn't want me involved, you would tuck me away with one of the American girls or with one of the others. Neveah would want my help with her children, and she knows German and Russian as well as Swedish. I'd have to learn Ukranian if I was going to help Natalia."

Yelena growled and seized Nina by the back of the neck to kiss her roughly. "Hell, no. You aren't leaving me."

"So let me help," Nina said against Yelena's mouth, cupping her face with her hands. "We need our resources pooled for this. There's eleven of us left, and we can't have them dropping off like flies. They deserve better."

Sighing, Yelena nodded and touched her forehead to Nina's. "Yes, they do."

"Let me help," Nina repeated.

"Let's see what the plan is first."

Nina let out a disappointed sigh and pulled away from Yelena to get out of the car. Didn't she know that Yelena was trying to protect her? Didn't she realize how much she loved her? If anything happened to her...

No, better to not even think those thoughts.

Marcia was done teaching for the day, so they went around back to the owner's entrance. They went upstairs to Marcia's living space, aware that Clint and Javier beat them there, and Olga had arrived with Natasha. Yelena couldn't help but worry, not just about Nina but about the other clones. They all had lives they didn't want to leave, and were refusing to think that these deaths had anything to do with them. How could she help protect women that didn't want her to protect them? How could she impress upon them the enormity of the danger?

Though she saw Natasha's face in Nina's every day, Yelena was still struck by seeing Natasha in the flesh again. It had been ten years since the Red Room burned down, since she and Ivan managed to escape the wreckage. She had dealt with the fallout of that act, but never once had gone after Natasha. She had made a name for herself in the underground as a mercenary, and then had become part of SHIELD. There hadn't been any opportunity, not with keeping the clones safe and with teaching Nina what she needed to know.

Part of her suddenly ached. Natasha remembered _nothing_ of what they once had, the last vestiges of what had made her Natalia Alianovna Romanova stripped away to make more room for whatever personality overlays she was to be implanted with. So there was no longer any tie to Yelena, or to the Winter Soldier, no fondness for any of her comrades in the Red Room. Yelena had known that for years, had dealt with it, had moved on.

But it still hurt to see Natasha look at her without any recognition of their shared past. She accepted that Yelena had been part of the Red Room, that she had gone out of her way to save the clones that she could. She never asked _why._ She never wondered why Yelena would care, why she would take on this monumental task. Though it had been as much for the ladies' sakes as it had been for the love she once had for Natasha. That was still there somewhere, faded and lonely, abandoned and left to wither. Yelena would never push herself where she wasn't wanted, and Natasha didn't remember that they had once been lovers, that they had shared whispers in the barracks, had dreams of one day escaping into the wider world and making lives for themselves that their handlers didn't control.

They had done it, but not in the way they once had wished.

Nina was observant, could see that there was some kind of undercurrent in Yelena's behavior during this initial meeting. Yelena wanted to damn her for it, but she loved her for it as well. It was simply part of her, that intuitive sense of what made people tick. Now it simply made her want to cry, because it would rip open wounds she thought were sealed.

More fool, her. This was why the Red Room wanted to sever all ties. Emotions could be dangerous things, could lead people to trip up and fail missions. But they never understood that sometimes emotions were the very things that made people sit up and take notice and try despite long odds, and succeed in spite of everyone else predicting failure.

Clint had skills as a marksman, as well as ties to different organizations from his work with SHIELD and now Dynamic Solutions. Plus, though he didn't formally tell his boss about the situation, he had mentioned it to his current partner and tapped a few friends in the Avengers. That had to be promising. Javier knew Nancy and counted her as a friend, always a plus. He also knew Fyed, so he could bring further contacts to bear, particularly those in Western Europe. It wouldn't help Natalia in the Ukraine, or Neveah in Sweden, but it could be useful for Nadine in Amsterdam, Thérèse in Paris, and Constance in London. They didn't mention the US contingent, Marcia, Nina or Olga. Marcia and Nina could likely handle themselves, but Olga... That would be a problem best solved on a different day.

"I did call Izzy a few hours ago," Clint said after the room had settled into melancholic silence. "I trust her, and she said Steve planned to head this way. She said she had some surprises, but..."

"Steve?" Natasha asked in surprise. "But he and Sam were tracking the Winter Soldier."

No affection in her tone, just business. Yelena sighed, almost disappointed, even though she knew the Red Room would have punished them for their tryst.

"Izzy wasn't about to go into detail over the phone. Did you really think Steve would leave you hanging if you needed help?"

Natasha's abashed expression clearly told them all that she hadn't considered it. "He said he trusts me _now..."_

"Nat," Clint began patiently. "He's goddamn _Captain America._ When SHIELD is full of duplicitous lowlife Hydra thugs, of course he's going to raze it to the ground and not know who to trust. And you're a spy. He didn't trust me either at first, if it makes you feel any better."

Her lips quirked into something like a smile. "Not really, no."

"Well," Javier interrupted with an anxious expression, "If Captain America is helping, I will want to start seeing if I can find good help. He may be able to look after the sisters in Sweden or the Ukraine. I have no contacts there."

"What do we do in the meantime?" Olga demanded. "I'm not skilled as the rest of you are, and I'm caught in this just the same."

"You're feeling trapped here, aren't you?" Clint asked, sympathetic. At her nod, he glanced at Natasha. "Hey, why don't I sneak you out of here for the night? You'll have to pose as my girlfriend, probably, but I can take you out to a couple places."

"You're much better looking than my ex," Olga said with a shrug. "No funny business."

Clint raised a hand and gave her an earnest expression. "Absolutely not. Besides, I'm sure that even if you didn't utterly emasculate me if I tried anything, Natasha will."

"Of course," she said sweetly, a smile on her face.

The group dispersed in ones and twos, and Yelena drove Nina to their hotel room. It was a quiet trip, for all that it wasn't very long, and Yelena dreaded the confrontation that would inevitably come from this. God, she felt so fucking old.

"I saw how you looked at her," Nina said without preamble as Yelena sat on the bed and kicked off her shoes. Yelena looked up, shoulders slumped, a weariness settling into her bones.

"What do you want me to say?" Yelena asked quietly. She pushed herself off of the bed and stood in front of Nina, concerned.

For a long time, they simply stared at each other. Nina was likely trying to figure out how to ask the question on the tip of her tongue without asking it. Yelena prayed she would, and also prayed that she wouldn't. This would likely hurt either way.

"Do you love me because of her?" Nina finally asked, close to tears.

"Yes," Yelena murmured. She caught Nina's arm when she tried to leave. "Because you wouldn't exist if not or her. I wouldn't be alive if not for her. So yes, it's because of her that I could love you. Because I do. For _you,_ not for memories of her."

"How do I know that?" Nina asked, voice hitching on a sob.

"I don't know if I can ever prove it to you. Yes, I loved her once. Yes, seeing her reminded me of that. But it was more than ten years ago, and so much has happened since then. We're not the people we were back then. And I never once kissed you thinking or wishing that you were her. I never once wanted you to be her."

"You tried pushing me away at first..."

"For your safety. Because of who I am and what I do. Not because of her." Yelena grasped Nina's face in her hands. "I don't know what to do or say to make you happy. I want to. Make you happy, I mean. I don't know how. I'm a killer, Nina. I'm a mass murderer. I'm a shadow, a lie. That's why I never accepted your proposals. I can't be who you want me to be. Who you need me to be. I can't be _good."_

Nina pulled her in for a crushing hug. "You _idiot."_ She kissed Yelena's cheek sloppily, almost giddy. Yelena was confused. "You blind, stupid _idiot._ I love you. I know what you are, exactly what you are, and I don't care. I know this. _You_ make me happy. Just being you, just being with me. Making stupid, lame jokes. Sitting in the plaza on a weekend. In the apartment with a book and arguing over whether or not it should have even been published because it's so bad. Laughing with me about how terrible my students' English is." Nina kissed her again, full on the mouth, and Yelena was stunned.

"I love you, you stupid moron. You're _mine,_ don't ever think differently."

"Even if I'm a killer?"

"Nobody's perfect," Nina replied cheekily. "Besides, now I am, too."

Yelena let out a laugh that was almost like a hiccup. "I suppose that's true..."

"So stop being stupid. Tell me you'll marry me when this is all over. We'll take care of my sisters, we'll pack off Natasha to wherever the hell she wants to be, we'll make nice with their spy friends, _and then we'll get married and have our lives to ourselves._ I'm not taking no for an answer, Yelena. I'm not."

She laughed again, and clutched Nina close, crying and laughing at the same time. "You stupid woman, how can you love me?"

"I just do. So?"

Nodding, Yelena grasped Nina and kissed her. "Yes. So help me, _yes."_

"Good. I have plans for you, Lena. I've been pondering this for the past three years."

"Oh, dear God," Yelena groaned. "I'm not doing something fluffy or frou-frou."

"Would I steer you wrong?"

"Yes," Yelena replied emphatically.

Nina laughed, and practically danced around the room with her. "Okay, I would absolutely do that to fuck with you. But I promise, I would not ruin our wedding. Once in a lifetime, I'm not going to mess that up." She grinned brightly at her. "Alia can bake our cake!"

Yelena groaned dramatically. "I've created a monster."

But Nina's laughter was absolutely worth it.

***

Steve Rogers arrived in jeans, a blue shirt and plain leather jacket. Without the telltale uniform, most pedestrians didn't recognize him. They didn't recognize his dark skinned companion, who had a jovial smile and a steady head on his shoulders. He was also casually dressed, as was their companion, a tall man with dark hair pulled back from his haunted face. He wore a long sleeved hoodie and black gloves over his hands, and didn't make eye contact with anyone when he was ushered into Marcia's meeting room.

"Steve!" Natasha hissed.

"I know what you're going to say," he began, taking a small tablet out of the inner pocket of his jacket. "But wait a minute, okay? We're missing one more."

The missing one more turned out to be Tony Stark, gleefully Skyping in rather than attending the Stark Industries meeting he and Pepper ostensibly flew to Berlin to attend. "What? I was able to give a few friends a free and off the record flight into Europe. No underhanded business whatsoever," he said with a wide grin. "Hey, Cap, pivot the camera around, will you? I can't see everyone here."

"I saw you on television once," Olga said, a dubious look on her face. Tony zeroed in on her right away. "It was not very flattering."

"Holy shit. You _do_ look just like Natasha. I thought Steve and Clint were exaggerating. Oh, who am I kidding? Since when does Steve exaggerate anything?" He threw up his hands and then leaned in closer to the camera. "Wow. There are _four_ Natashas there. I find this highly disturbing."

"No, Mr. Stark," Nina said tightly. "There's only one Natasha. I'm Nina. That was Olga, and this is Marcia," she said, pointing to the sisters in turn. "Get the names right."

He blinked. "Wow. Yeah. Sorry about that. It's a shock, sorry."

Marcia nodded briskly. "So why did you need to meet with us?"

"Well, Natasha knows that after SHIELD fell and she went underground, Steve and Sam went off in search for his old buddy there." All eyes went to the taciturn brunet. "Better known as the Winter Soldier. He was in hiding for a while, then all of a sudden there were brutal killings of Hydra agents in Baltimore, Crystal City, three small towns in Mississippi, then Nashville—not a fan of country music, I guess?—and then two smaller cities in Oklahoma."

"We were trailing behind the body counts," Steve said quietly. "So I asked Tony to help me figure out where the next place might be."

"We wound up looking into SHIELD safe houses, office buildings, storage facilities, anything," Sam added for the others' benefit.

"Why did you start in Baltimore?" Marcia asked, looking directly at the taciturn man.

He looked up at her with empty eyes, every inch the ghost that the intelligence community thought he was. "Because they killed her."

"Dinah," Marcia whispered, stunned when he nodded.

"She found me," the Winter Soldier said quietly. "I wasn't quite free of their programming yet, and I walked from DC to Baltimore. I was homeless, and she found me."

"She was a social worker," Marcia said for the others' benefit.

The Winter Soldier nodded. "She was helping me find a place to stay. She thought I was a veteran. Because of my arm, the way I moved. Thought I was too afraid of the VA. She knew that type, thought I was like them." At a few of the others' nods, he took a breath. "She was killed for helping me. They made it look like an ordinary killing, but I knew it for what it was. Hydra wanted me back."

"So you got even by killing them," Olga said with an approving nod. "This is good."

"No, this is not good," Steve said with a sigh. He scrubbed at his face. "Because we're considered terrorists and amoral killers."

"Hate to interrupt you there, Cap, but there have been a couple more hearings and the terrorist label's been dropped from SHIELD," Tony added helpfully. "Now they're just considered one of many ineffectual government agencies."

That obviously didn't make Steve feel comforted.

"In any case, dragging me into this story got me looking into things," Tony said. He tapped on a Starkpad on his end of the connection. "I know it's only been a few days, but I work fast and I can help you with the US side of things. In fact, I am _right this second_ in the process of hiring on a certain photographer that lives in California. Pepper loves visiting New Orleans, so maybe we could open an office building in the area. It would bring work to a post-Katrina city, always good. And if we happen to have a favorite bakery, well, so be it." He grinned at them as if the problem was solved. "And scarily enough, Nancy and Maria have already met online and are way too chummy for comfort. So I think she's fine."

"Holy shit, that does take care of the US contingent," Nina blurted.

"We still need to take care of the ladies here," Natasha sighed. She frowned slightly at Steve, Sam and the Winter Soldier. "What are your plans for all this?"

"Same as before, I guess," Sam said with a shrug. "Hunt Hydra, clear out the nest."

"I won't go into the chair again," the Winter Soldier said, voice hard. "And they will pay for hurting Dinah. She was good to me. She didn't have to be."

"That was Dinah, though," Marcia said with a soft smile.

Yelena nodded. "She wanted to pay forward the help we gave her when she was found."

The Winter Soldier turned his eyes toward her, but there was no recognition there, either. "I'll do the same, then. She helped me, I should help those like her."

"Now, I'm guessing the four of you are taken care of?" Steve asked looking between Natasha and her clones.

"The others, perhaps," Olga said. "I have not trained for combat. I trained as an engineer."

Tony perked up at that. "Really? SI could always use engineers for R&D. That would keep you protected in a heartbeat. And I'm here in Berlin! We should meet!"

"Or I could teach you to defend yourself," the Winter Soldier intoned.

Olga looked a bit uncertain, torn between the two choices. "Well..."

"No rush," Tony said quickly. He smiled at the assemblage. "Now, while I don't really have direct control over European factories, who do we have left to take care of?"

Marcia listed the last five clones: Natalia Korasova in Ukraine, Nadine Fisher in Amsterdam, Neveah Almgren in Sweden, Thérèse Levigne in Paris, Constance Claredon in London.

"I know people that can help in Paris, Amsterdam and London," Javier said with a shrug. "I'm not so good with Scandinavia or Ukraine."

"And they really won't move. Those are the ones with children," Nina supplied.

"Children," Natasha murmured, shock in her voice.

"Neveah's are adopted. She was too... Well, let's just say surgery was necessary to save her life when we found her," Yelena murmured. "Not to worry, the fuckers responsible are dead."

"I find that statement very sexy and very scary, by the way," Tony offered.

"Natasha, are all your spy friends like this?" Sam whispered in the awkward silence.

"More or less?" she replied. She looked at the others uncertainly. "What are you planning to do? I can't ask you to do this."

"Oh. That." Sam grinned at her and then slung an arm around her shoulders. "Just to be clear. You aren't asking. I'm volunteering, same as I did for Steve. Got it?"

She shifted her eyes to Steve. "And you?"

"We can't leave them vulnerable. You sacrificed a lot to help me. I don't think I realized how much until Sam and I went on the road." He looked over at Olga and smiled in the face of her uncertain expression. "How about this? You and Bucky can go meet up with Mr. Stark. Talk engineering stuff, see if you can manage to do both. Hydra doesn't seem to know anything about the rest of you ladies, so we're not in a rush to decide anything today."

Olga looked over at the Winter Soldier. "Bucky?"

"A nickname. From who I used to be."

"You do not like this."

"It isn't what I am now."

She nodded, understanding the difference even if the optimist Steve didn't seem to. "And what do you choose to be called?"

His eyes snapped to hers, assessing. She returned his gaze calmly, chin raised. All the others watched closely, palpably relieved when his lips finally curled into something resembling a smile. "I think I remember something like this."

"What shall I call you?" Olga insisted.

"James." He cast his eyes toward Steve and Sam, taking in the pained expression on Steve's face. Something in his own expression softened a fraction. "That idiot over there is the only one that calls me Bucky. Maybe Sam, too."

She smiled and went to his side, patting his arm. "I am Olga. I may not look like much, but I am tough. I refused to let Vory underlings destroy me. I won't let this either."

He returned her smile and then nodded. "Then let's get to Stark's for your interview."

Once the four of them left, Clint looked at Natasha. "Should I be worried about this? I mean, it's _the Winter Soldier_ with your clone."

"Whatever else," Yelena began, cutting off whatever Natasha would have said, "the Winter Soldier was always a protector to the girls in the Red Room. Even if he is nothing more than the programming that they gave him, he will not harm her."

Natasha gave her a flinty eyed stare. "I have a scar that says otherwise."

"He shot you." At her nod, Yelena returned her stare. "But you lived, and none would have suspected that he deliberately let you live. The Winter Soldier was never about subtlety, never about leaving witnesses. It was about getting the job done and making a statement."

Sitting back, Natasha absorbed this piece of information. "But—"

"They made you forget many things. As they did to him. But some things are hard wired and cannot ever be erased, no matter how much they tried."

If there was a trace of bitterness in her voice, no one commented on it.

"On that cheery note," Javier said with a sigh, "I did promise to call my friend Etienne about our lovely marketing friend." He nodded at the tablet that Steve left behind. "Good to meet you, Mr. Stark. Perhaps next time it may even be in the flesh."

"Try not to make that as salacious sounding. Pepper frowns upon such things."

"That's never stopped you before," Natasha snarked.

Tony grinned. "There you are. For a while there, I thought the whole SHIELD crashing had gotten you down. Good to see that side of you again."

Natasha sent him a mock glower, making him laugh. "I have an idea about the Swedish mom, if you don't mind me contacting one or two other people."

"Do what you need to do," Marcia said firmly. "Our first priority is in keeping all of us safe."

After Tony logged off, Natasha looked over at the others in the room. "You know, I'm almost starting to think that this can work."

Nina beamed. "Good. Because I have ideas for how to move things forward, and it would really be a shame if something ruined those plans." She shrugged when everyone stared at her in surprise. "What? I'm being practical. I want all my sisters at my wedding, after all."

Yelena covered her face in her hands and groaned.

***  
***


	6. Finalizing

Those following meteorology or tracking tremors recorded a massive spike in energies near Malmo, Sweden. This coincided with the arrival of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts in Copenhagen, ostensibly because Pepper wanted to see the ballet there and Tony was meeting with a small research facility to broker a licensing agreement. If a certain tall blond warrior from another dimension and his friends decided to arrive, hey, more drinking buddies, right?

Tony had been suitably impressed with Olga's engineering skill, and told her he would have hired her even if she wasn't Natasha's blonde clone that needed protecting. He studiously had avoided the brooding soldier next to her, and discussed plans he had for expanding the research division of Stark Industries to look into clean energy. It hadn't been part of Olga's training or implanted skill sets, but the actual physical design could fall under her expertise. "There's definitely New Orleans," Tony mentioned, tapping on his StarkPad. "But I suppose I should look into some kind of central location in Europe. We can get around EU standards, I think. Pepper will know about that kind of thing, and she's CEO anyway."

"Why do you do this?" Olga had asked, frowning at him.

"Natasha's a friend. Kind of. A teammate, I guess you could say. She's hard to get to know and make friends with, the whole spy thing, I suppose. It makes sense now." He shrugged. "And it's not like it would hurt my company. We already have the Berlin location, but that wouldn't help all of you hide or get protection. I have a feeling Marcia can protect herself, but she can always look us up if she can't."

"If you pick a location in Paris, that would make sense," Olga told him. "That would take care of protecting Thérèse, of course. But it could possibly also cover Constance and Nadine," she said.

"Thor and his buddies are going to visit Neveah," Tony said, frowning at the map. "But then that leaves your sister Natalia in the Ukraine. I have no excuse to be there." 

"I do," James replied in a dour tone.

The two of them looked at him, but he didn't elaborate. "What is it?" Olga asked, brows knit in curiosity. She even reached out to touch his arm to get his attention. While Tony was concerned, thinking that the soldier would strike her, he didn't.

"I sent Steve and Sam ahead to check while I came here with you," he said. His speech was largely brusque and to the point, a holdover from the Hydra programming days. "But I remember a base near there. Where they had a chair."

"Reprogramming," Olga said, mouth parting slightly. "They give you things or take them away."

James nodded, looking almost miserable though his face was still mostly blank. It was the eyes, really. Tony could see the tightening around his eyes, the tension in his shoulders. He had seen the same thing in the mirror after Afghanistan.

"And you don't want to see it, but it needs to get gone," Tony said, nodding. "Want more help?" he offered. It was a spur of the moment thing, but he had an Iron Man suit in his quinjet, so it really shouldn't have been an issue.

"You have to meet your friends in Malmo."

"I can fly there pretty quick."

Blinking slowly, he looked from Olga to Tony before shaking his head. "We're good. Thanks, though. It's good to have backup."

Tony nodded and looked over at Olga. "Well, as for you, anytime you want a job, just give us a call and let us know. Whichever place you like, we'll squeeze you in. R&D is pretty good that way, and it's usually pretty low key. Unless you work with me, in which case I'm up at all hours of the day and build all kinds of crazy things just to see if I can. Which I usually can," he added as an aside, shrugging.

"You're like your father that way," James said abruptly, startling Tony. "I remember that about him. He built things just to see if he could, and they usually worked. Even if they were incredibly dangerous or about to explode. Sometimes _because_ they would explode."

"Huh," Tony murmured, nonplused. "You knew a different side of him, then."

"Suppose so," he agreed. He looked to Olga. "You don't have to go with me."

"Yes, I do," she said firmly, patting the arm she was still holding on to. "Because they hurt me, and I have hidden myself away for too long. I am through being afraid. I suffered because I thought that it would keep me safer in the long run, but it wasn't true. I suffered. That's all it was, and I will not let it happen to me ever again."

James nodded. "You'll need training."

"I may remember some things. Nina thought I would. And if she and Marcia can do well with physical attacks, then it's likely you can train me, James."

He responded well to her touch and suggestion; Tony filed that away to ponder later. It seemed to be almost unconscious on their parts, and all the brainwashing that Hydra and the Red Room had done likely meant that _something_ had gone down between the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow. Yelena had seemed to imply such a thing. None of Tony's business, however, and he wasn't about to joke about it. Pepper and her sensibilities were definitely rubbing off on him, which was likely not a bad thing.

Thor was as effusive as ever, full of smiles and hugs and the joyful abandon at visiting with his friends again. Sif greeted Pepper warmly, and the Warriors Three hung back slightly to survey Malmo and its environs. They all cheerfully sat in the restaurant Pepper chose for lunch, electing to have half the menu for their celebratory feast.

"What are we celebrating?" Pepper asked, lips quirking into a smile.

"Why, my return to your realm, meeting with such good comrades in arms," Thor replied.

"I'm the one in the suit," Tony pointed out. "I'm Iron Man."

"Yes, Tony," Pepper replied dryly. "But he's recognizing the power behind the suit."

They all had a good laugh, and Thor gaily waved to the stunned onlookers. Pepper had quietly arranged to have Neveah, her husband and their three children arrive for lunch so that they could _conveniently_ be present. The brunette still looked far too much like Natasha Romanoff, being her clone, but dressed in ordinary clothes and with the harried mothering expression on her face, Neveah didn't strike onlookers as a spy. Of course, if Natasha did her job properly, no one would think she was a spy either.

Thor accidentally on purpose knocked over a chair and bumped into them, then as recompense for the "aggrieved insult" to their party, invited them over to share the table with the rest of them. Neveah's husband looked shell shocked, and she at least looked mortified by the attention paid to her. She had previously been worried about any publicity from being publicly seen with Thor, but Tony had some gadgets that blocked wifi and Bluetooth signals, which sharply limited uploading capabilities in the restaurant. Plus, Hogun had entered the restaurant stating that taking any photographs without consent was tantamount to assault. Given the obvious display of weapons on all the Asgardian warriors, no one was willing to go toe to toe with any of them just to take a selfie with them in the background.

"Now," Tony said with a rueful smile, talking to Neveah's husband Benkt as Thor chatted with her about pets, music and the dubious benefits of food toddlers would eat. "She happens to be related to someone I know and care about. That might get dangerous."

"I'm aware of the harm done my wife before we met," he replied stiffly.

Tony blew out a relieved breath. "Awesome. I really don't want to have to talk about that, you know? Now, I'm told she's a housewife, right? So yours is the only job that I'd have to worry about relocating."

He glowered at Tony now. "What are you talking about?"

"You're factory assembly line, right? Well, I've got plenty of those. And you have three little mouths to feed. I'm told kids grow up fast and eat a lot." Tony eyed the four year old, who grinned at Thor and had some kind of sauce smeared across his hands, all around his face, and there was a sticky handprint on the tablecloth. He and Volstagg seemed to be having an eating contest, and that looked like it was about to quickly slide into a burping contest. No wonder Pepper had a hard time convincing Neveah to bring her entire family to a nice restaurant. "The dry cleaning alone would be damn near astronomical, I'm thinking."

Benkt hadn't changed expression. "What are you talking about, Mr. Stark?"

"Oh, I guess we're being all formal now," Tony huffed. Beside him, Pepper laughed at some face the three year old was making at Thor. And of course Thor made it right back. So much for the dignity of the Asgardian royal family.

That didn't seem to make Benkt any less formal, so Tony sighed. "Okay. I didn't look at your financial records yet, but I'm willing to bet that your salary and five mouths to feed is a bit tight on the budget." Benkt didn't acknowledge that in words, but his jaw tightened. "If I double your pay and give more benefits, think you'd want to work for me?"

"Why?"

"If the bad guys that hurt her come back, what are the odds they'll stop with just her?"

If Benkt tightened his jaw any more, his teeth would likely crack. "I know they are not good. But we are good people. Quiet people. We live a good life, and I keep my family safe."

"And you do a good job," Tony said quickly. "It would be easier with a raise, and I don't think any are coming at your factory."

"No. They laid off twenty men last week."

"Come, friend Benkt," Thor said, interrupting to thrust a mug of beer at him. "I toast you and your children. They will make fine warriors someday."

The assembled adults looked at the three boys and the messy place settings at the table. Pepper looked at Thor, eyebrow raised. "Warriors?"

"Fine spirits, good coordination. Not afraid to bathe in the blood of their enemies—"

Neveah had such a horrified look on her face, especially once she realized that her four year old was covered in sauce despite the bib she had put on him.

Benkt sighed and looked at Tony. "I'm a machinist," he said as Neveah got up to try to wipe off the sauce with the large package of baby wipes she had in her oversized purse. Fandral was trying to help her, but he was doing more harm than good in that arena.

"And kids are expensive. Especially if they're going to go to college. Want me to set up some trust funds for them?" Tony added, feeling almost sorry for Benkt.

"If it's no trouble..."

"I'm a billionaire and she's related to a friend of mine. That practically makes you guys family, you realize that? And they're my friends, too," Tony said, nodding at the Asgardians. The three year old was in Thor's lap, tugging on one of his braids as he told the kids about bilgesnipe hunting. "So I guess that makes you part of his adoptive family, too."

Leaning back in his chair, Benkt shook his head. "And I thought children were going to be the most adventurous thing we chose to do."

"Buddy, you married into some kind of weird spy family," Tony replied, giving him a light tap on the shoulder. _"Nothing_ you do is going to be normal."

Pepper chuckled beside him. "Trust us on that one. You're new to this, but we'll be able to catch you up to speed. And besides, your children love Thor. He's very good with them. I'm sure he would agree to babysit so that you and your lovely wife can have some alone time together every now and again."

The hopeful look on Benkt's and Neveah's faces indicated they were on board with Tony and Pepper's plan to relocate to one of their European locations.

***

Natasha, Clint, Steve and Sam sat in a Parisian restaurant for dinner. It was a hole in the wall location, nothing too fancy but with good enough food in large enough portions that would fill even Steve's appetite. "I think we got all of them sorted, more or less," Clint began, reaching for his beer. "So are you going to go back into hiding again?"

She sighed a little. "It wasn't hiding, not really."

"I got the impression you were going to find who you really are," Steve commented. "Because you blew all your covers when you blasted out the information from SHIELD servers."

"And you read it," Natasha murmured, her gut tightened a little. Of course he had. Why else had she put it all out there?

"Naw, I did," Sam said with an easy shrug. "He was being all honorable or some bullshit like that, said it wasn't right. But I figured, you _wanted_ to be known. That everyone in the world would be able to see the horrible shit that different governments put you through, and you _still_ went around saving everyone's asses like they deserved it. Superhero behavior, if you ask me," he added with a smile.

Natasha let out the breath she had been holding. "Oh."

"Please tell me you didn't think we all hated you," Steve said, shocked.

Clint merely sighed at her silence. "You know people really well, and couldn't figure that out? All of us, willing to go to bat for you anytime."

"Even if you don't ask," Sam pointed out. "Especially if you don't."

"I've done many horrible things," Natasha said slowly. "I'm not a good person."

"You are in the way that it counts," Steve said quietly. "We all do what we need to do in order to get by. I don't know why everyone seems determined to look at me like I'm some naïve idiot. I use that to take advantage, maybe, but it's not the truth."

"You?" Sam scoffed. "Take advantage of people? Oh, please. Mr. 'I'm so sorry to intrude on your house and your life and by the way, you're a good shot, right?'"

Steve laughed, and after a moment Natasha joined in with him and Clint. "Yes, but you're a friend, Sam. I don't take advantage of friends. People determined to be shitty are a completely different story."

"I think I'm shocked that Captain America knows how to swear," Clint teased.

"In five languages, thank you very much," Steve said with a laugh.

"Am I the only one here that knows only English?" Clint asked with a playfully aggrieved tone.

"Dude, I was stationed overseas in the middle of a war zone without reliable translators. Of course I learned another language," Sam said, poking him in the arm.

Natasha felt a tightness in her chest ease that she hadn't realized was there. "Thank you," she said abruptly, looking at the three of them intently. "And when I see the others, I'll thank them, too. I didn't think I could ask any of you to do this."

Clint leaned in close and Sam slung an arm around her shoulders to tenderly kiss her cheek. "I say it's leftover programming, Nat," Sam told her. "Because I get the feeling that they did quite a number on you, even after you got away from them."

"I've been making up for that damage for a long time." She gave them a tight, uncomfortable smile. "I know some of what they had me do. There are still large pieces I can't remember. And without the specific chemical compounds and triggers along with their machines, I won't ever be able to remember it."

"Probably not worth it, honestly," Clint said. "I mean, you did burn them all out."

"But it means I won't be able to make it all go away. I can't make it all balance."

"I think you've put things into more than balance," Steve told her earnestly. "You've saved countless lives before I even met you, and since then we can honestly say it's been in the millions, especially with bringing down Hydra and Project Insight. How can you say you can't make it balance?"

She blew out a breath. Leaning against Sam, she held Clint's hand tightly and gave Steve a small, sad smile. "Because I can't afford to fall back into what they turned me into. I told you, I thought I was going straight. But working for Hydra..."

"We don't know which cases were which," Clint pointed out. "But even so, not everything Hydra did was to torture innocent people. Definitely self-serving and underhanded, but even the bad guys sometimes do a good turn. Think of it this way. When we go undercover someplace pretty bad, like that time you went in with that street gang, you do some really questionable shit to maintain your cover. So if their cover is a SHIELD agent, sometimes they have to do some really good things along the way. You'll go insane if you try to figure out which case was which, even if you comb through the public archive."

"Which I have, by the way," Sam interrupted. "And I know you probably memorized it all."

"But I can't _know,"_ Natasha said quietly.

"Some things you can't go by facts," Steve told her. "Sometimes you have to go with your gut instinct. By now, I can say I know this much about you: you never willingly endanger others, and you work tirelessly to fix the mistakes others make. So tell me again why we shouldn't help you? Tell me again why you aren't worthy of our friendship?"

The words sank in and burned in her chest. She blinked back tears she didn't want to shed.

"Hey," Sam murmured, giving her shoulders a squeeze. "It's okay. He gets all intense and touchy feely like that with the rest of us, too." He grinned at her sniffle. "Steve's not going to be friends with losers, you know."

"That's one thing I never thought I was," Natasha huffed. "The Widow always wins."

"Good girl," Sam said with a smile as Clint pushed her drink closer to her.

"You still haven't answered my question, by the way," he said casually. "Going into hiding again? Or maybe you'll hang out with us?"

"Be an Avenger?"

"Fyed would hire you in a heartbeat," Clint told her.

"Or you could travel the world with us and smoke out some bad guys," Sam said with a grin.

"Fyed's got a side project for that, too," Clint informed them. "I could put in a word. It'll be good to have a paycheck and resources to fund that quest you're on. Explosives and ammo cost a lot, especially if you have to smuggle them into controlled zones."

"You've got that right," Steve groused. "Banking on my fame doesn't work very long."

Natasha snorted. "I'll bet they love your pretty face."

Steve grinned at her playfully. "Might as well make use of it, right?"

"Seriously, though," Clint said, grasping her hand tightly. Her eyes traveled from their linked fingers to his eyes. "You're not as alone as you think. And you're gonna be okay."

"Sure about that?" she asked, a slight rasp to her voice.

"Absolutely."

When Clint used that serious tone of voice, she could even believe it.

***

When planning the wedding, the general consensus amongst all of the clones was that they wanted to visit Spain. Yelena and Nina might have visited a lot of places in Madrid, but the rest of the ladies were unfamiliar with it and a wedding was a fabulous excuse to travel. Even Alia with her newborn preferred to go to Madrid, even when they were willing to travel to New Orleans. "But I've never been there!" Nina pouted.

Yelena patted her arm and pulled out swatches of fabrics for the catering hall they were renting. "It'll be better to go during Mardi Gras or Halloween rather than in the sweltering heat. How about this one for the seat covers?"

The hall itself was beautiful, a classic Renaissance building that only held one event at a time. Yelena walked down one side of the seating area for the wedding while Nina walked down the other side, giving themselves away, and they met in the middle to clasp hands and say their vows, giving each other their lives and futures. It was a short and meaningful ceremony, surrounded by all of Nina's "sisters," their families, the Avengers and a number of coworkers that could be trusted not to give it all away. Even the clones that hadn't been aware of that fact were now in on it, and were far more understanding of the paranoia that knowledgeable clones had had.

Natasha arrived for the wedding along with Clint and Izzy; it had made sense to accept Fyed's job offer to have some kind of financial backing. Plus, there was Clint to work with in New York, and she liked Izzy as soon as she met her. The woman was whip smart and sarcastic, and wasn't afraid of Natasha's past as an assassin for hire. "So... Any good contacts left that we can exploit?" had been the first words out of her mouth, as a matter of fact.

Natasha's clones didn't seem uncomfortable with the idea that Natasha was the original one; at least, no one said so. It took a while for her to wrap her brain around it, but she acclimated to the idea of having sisters. It was nice to have some kind of family now, though it clashed directly with her early programming to work alone and not rely on others. She was learning to deal with that, and to realize that she could lean on a select number of friends to help her and her sisters.

 _Sisters._ If she put aside her irrational fears, the thought made her almost giddy. She had a family. She could actually _belong._

She danced with the Avengers, with her brothers-in-law, with her sisters-in-law. She chatted with James and Olga, who decided that the Ukraine made a great base of operations to hunt Hydra agents from. It also allowed them to keep an eye on the area as well, acting as additional backup.

"You look happy," Clint commented, handing her a glass of champagne. He gave her a dramatic pause when she took the glass with a smile. "Is that a genuine smile, Natasha? I'm _shocked."_

Bumping his arm playfully with hers, Natasha grinned. "Stop. You're not as funny as you think."

"Of course I am." He clinked glasses with her, giving her a wide smile. "You love me and my sense of humor."

Natasha only laughed and drank her champagne. She laughed harder when Clint began to whine "C'mon, Natasha! Say something!"

"Let's not leave Izzy out of the fun, hm?" she said, dropping her empty glass on a side table. She took Clint's glass, still half full, and dropped it on the table as well. "We've ignored her long enough, haven't we?"

Clint heaved a dramatic sigh but let her drag him along. "Think they'll be okay? Your sisters, I mean."

Looking across the dance floor, she saw her face mirrored back at her, all grinning and happy. There were only so many ways they could protect her sisters, and they all understood how public her role in the Avengers would be. It would be dangerous, of course, especially if the Avengers came together and photos or video leaked to the media contained her face in them. But they had all agreed over the past few months to stay in contact and stay safe. They refused to live their lives in fear of shadow organizations.

Which meant Natasha wouldn't, either.

"Yeah, I think they will be. I think we all will."

The End


End file.
